It's hard for me to escape the feeling that Islamic banking replaces usury with hypocrisy, but I guess high-context Cultures could probably make the same argument in reverse.
I don't think it's appropriate to make fun of somebody else's culture "for a real laugh," but these links were interesting anyway. So, thank you.
It's perfectly appropriate, provided you're not Jewish.
Not sure that it is very different from Christianity and many other religions who banned charging interest, but then changed their minds/their definition of usury. The wikipedia page makes an interesting read:
Where's the hypocrisy in that? Perhaps I'm just being dense, but I fail to see the connection.
When paying a gift instead of interest, is the "gift" obligatory by any chance? Is it the same thing under a different name?
Islam forbids interest of all kinds. So if you are taking a gift in lieu of interest, that would be forbidden as well. Of course not everyone follows the rule to the letter but that doesn't change the fact that the rule exists and there are people who take it seriously.