The Jurisprudential-Legal Examination of the Theory of Time Value of Money and Its Extent of Its Function

The time value of money is one of the most important issues in economics which is less studied from a jurisprudential and legal point of view. The present money has more value than the future money according to this theory. Some Islamic economists have denied it and others have accepted it. Dissidents of the theory consider its contents as grounds for justification of usury but the supporters of the theory believe that the prohibition of usury is contrary to the theory and is merely a compulsory rule. The source of this disagreement is ignorance of two things in our opinion. First, the monetary value of time and the time value of money are assumed to be the same, and second, that the arguments in the field of probative of theory are not separated from those of its imperative (demonstrative) domain. We have evaluated the validity of the theories’ content in this article by a descriptive and analytical method in addition to explaining the distinction of the monetary value of time and time value of money, on the one hand, and on the other hand we have investigated the extent of its function. There is numerous evidence of jurisprudential and legal doctrines that shows that contrary to common thought, the content of the theory is valid from a jurisprudential and legal perspective, but the study of the extent of the theory indicates that is not possible to make profit and interest by relying on this theory according to the division of economic contracts into for-profit and nonprofit that the time value of money is only in the form of exploitative and profitable contracts such as sale (Arabic: بیع, Bayʿ) and in non-profit contracts such as lending (Arabic: قرض, Qarḍ), which are basically based on benefaction (Arabic: إحسان).