long-awaited ruling of the Constitutional Court of Egypt on interest has been issued in a test case brought before that Court by the Rector of the Azhar University. His Eminence the Appellant challenged the constituiionality of Ariicle 226 of the new Egyptian Civil Code for being contrary to the absolute interdiction of interest in the Shanta. lower court, by application of that Article, had ordered the Azhar University to pay the principal of a claim amounting to 592 Egyptian pounds plus interest at the rate of 4 per cent up iill the date of payment. However small the amount of money involved in the case, the decision of the Supreme Court of Egypt constitutes a landmark in the ideological controversy going on between liberal and fundamentalist Muslims. latter deny the validity of all secular legislation adopted by the Ottoman Empire) Egypt) Lebanon) Syria, Libya and Iraq during the last 100 years. interdiciion of interest in Islaniic law has been a subject of controversy since the beginning of Islam some 1,400 years ago. Is the Qur'anic prohibition absolute? Does it cover all forms of interest, or does it distinguish between moderate interest and usury? clash of opinions started shortly after the death of the Prophet, and will continue after the decision of the Supreme Court of Egypt. That decision reserved the queston of the legiiimacy or illegitimacy of interest and based its findings on a matter of dates. Its ruling rests on the principle of non-retro-activity of laws expressed in Article 2 of the Napoleonic Code and implicit irl the new Egyptian Civil Code: La loi ne dtspose que pour l'avenir9 (Law provides only for the future). Before the Supreme Court, counsel for the Plainiiff argued that Article 2 of the Egypiian Consiituiion was amended on 22 May 1980 to read in part as follows: The principles of the Shari'a are the main source of legislation in the Arab Republic of Egypt . While they differed among themselves in some pareculars, the Shanta jurists were practically unanimous in condemning interest in whatever form and at whatever rate. To quote Al-Moghni by the classical Hanbali jurist Ibn Kodama (Vol. IV of Lhe Beirut ediiion) at page 122: Riba (interest) is prohibited by the Book (the Qur'an), jche Sunna (the Tradition of the Prophet) and the consensus of the Muslim community. According to the Plainiiff, the amended text of the Constituiion implicitly repealed Ariicle 226 of the Egypiian Civil Code and replaced it by the ruling of ffie Shuri'a on the prohibition of interest That article of the new Code provides as follows: