Rather than a religious issue, perhaps the problem was that the Lebanese diaspora was incentivized with high interest rates to deposit their foreign currency in local banks, which was systemically looted by corrupt officials which eventually collapsed in money printing? Or that’s the understanding I have gathered from Lebanese commenters observing the shenanigans.

> That was until 2016, when banks began offering remarkable interest rates for new deposits of dollars - an officially accepted currency in the dollarised economy - and even more extraordinary rates for Lebanese pound deposits.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-lebanon-crisis-financial-...