Abrahamic Norm and the Architecture of Interest-Based Capitalism: A Historical-Technological Reconstruction

This paper reconstructs the historical-technological trajectory by which the Abrahamic prohibition on interest was dismantled and replaced by a global financial architecture that institutionalizes what all three Abrahamic traditions classify as a violation. The dismantling proceeded through qualitatively distinct ruptures: the medieval structural trap with Jews as buffer; Calvin's theological reinterpretation (1545); England's legalization of interest (1571); the institutional rupture of the Bank of England (1694); and the centuries-long sacralization of accumulation captured by Weber and reframed by Benjamin as debt-as-original-sin. By the mid-twentieth century this architecture had expanded into a global ecosystem sustained by dollar hegemony, delegated order, co-optation of intellectual critique, and atomization of solidarity bonds. A reproducible pattern of alternative-neutralization, tested against socialism, was redirected after 1991 toward Islam. Empirical evidence from the 2008–2009 crisis and from Iran's decade-long survival under sanctions complicates Kuran's thesis of institutional unviability. The paper establishes the "Alternative Solidarities" research framework.