Usury, Dante, Time

I am currently reading Dante's "The Divine Comedy," and one of the groups of people punished in Hell is, of course, the usurers. For Medieval Christians and modern Muslims (among each other), usury was a sin. But why?

Dante suggests:

"Philosophy makes plain by many reasons," 

he answered me, "to those who heed her teachings,
how all of nature,---her laws, her fruits, her seasons,---

springs from the Ultimate Intellect and Its art:
and if you read your Physics with due care,
you will note, not many pages from the start,

that Art strives after her by imitation,
as the disciple imitates the master;
Art, as it were, is the Grandchild of Creation.

By this, recalling the Old Testament
near the beginning of Genesis, you will see
that in the will of Providence, man was meant

to labor and to prosper. But usurers,
by seeking their increase in other ways,
scorn Nature in herself and her followers. (John Chiardi, tr.)

The author of the Physics is, of course, Aristotle. And Art for Plato and Aristotle was poiesis, which was a "making" or "doing." The maker learns what to make by apprenticing to a master. God, being the ultimate creator, is the ultimate master. He created the universe, and we imitate God.

But we cannot imitate God in one thing: making something out of nothing. At the time, people considered usury to be the creation of something (more money) out of nothing (mere lending). Of course, what a lender does in charging interest is charge for time. Thus, the usurer creates time for others.

But if we consider the fact that in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition God is the creator of time, where does that put the usurer? Is he not equally imitating God in making time for people? He cannot create it literally -- but he can, through lending, make time. And do we not deserve to get paid for what we make?

With a proper understanding of what it is usury does, we can see that the usurer is in fact a maker, just like the maker of physical objects. Thus, we can finally lead the usurers out of Hell.