Thank you so much for your prompt response. My confusion hasn’t eliminated yet. So, I will like to describe that in detail here.
1. The current banking system around the globe is a Jewish system whose spirit is based on a selfish and cruel ideology in which the recipient is always at high risk of being a loser while the banks have the safe measures in every way. What I have understood from your explanation is that since money is the consumable commodity but not the house or car so leasing a car or house doesn’t fall in the category of riba, right? But Sir! I see the same spirit in both cases. If I do not end up paying the monthly payment in time, my house or car is taken away by the leasing company and whatever money I might have paid so far will go in vain (that paid money might even be more than monthly rent for that time period). This is not just unfair but has the same spirit of interest based loans…extremely selfish and inconsiderate.
2. Installments are not unlawful what I have read in ahadiths is that if the deal is fixed and not varies with time and both party have security. Because in this case of paying in later time can cost more but in that case both parties have benefit and have already agreed and doesn’t depend on time. The seller gets more money and the buyer gets the good right away. But if the dealing is such that the seller gets more and more money if the buyer cannot pay in time and there is no fixed deal but can vary with time depending on payments then that is surely a riba based deal, right? This at least to my understanding, I see the same horrors in it too like interest taken in lending money.
3. The justification that the extra money one ends up paying in buying a house on leasing or mortgage is that, that is taken as rent for that period of time. Fine…but don’t you think that this is the very same justification that people who give loans with interest claim about; renting out the money given in loans! Furthermore the lack of security for the recipient in leasing house is common with the interest based loans so doesn’t that make house mortgage same grave sin like interest?
4. In one of conversation on TV Ghamidi Sahab said that the payer of interest is a “mazloom” and therefore not a sinner. But what I have read in hadiths is that the payer and recipient of bribery do the equal sin. And likewise it’s said for the one who takes interest, who gives interest and even who is the witness and does the processing are equally sinful. So just merely declaring the interest payer a mazloom person can’t save form Allah’s torment?
5. The “Lariba” system from what I have understood doesn’t have the flaws the other mortgage industries have. Like if the recipient can’t pay after paying certain amount. His paid money is returned by being investment in profit loss based stocks. Also you have to pay the same money what has been made a deal at the time of buying the house so unlike mortgage the payment doesn’t increase with time with insecurity.
I hope I was able to make you understand what perspectives I have in my mind about this issue. I will highly appreciate if you can remove my confusion to accept the fact that the mortgage and car leasing systems are lawful in Islam. Willfully making a deal that has same unfairness like riba, how can that be justified?
Answer
It’s a tricky business to start looking for the spirit of riba in various business transactions. Someone can see very clearly, in her/his enthusiasm, the spirit of riba even in rental arrangements. So let us not complicate matter and see with a clear mind what riba is and what it is not. As I mentioned earlier, if you have the option of returning your fixed asset to its owner if you cannot afford to pay rentals any more, what you are going through is a rental arrangement and not riba. In riba, the borrowed stuff is already lost and it cannot be recreated with hundred percent certainty. If you have paid an amount more than the rentals, then criticize the arrangement for charging high rentals, but don’t call it riba.
I have not been able to understand what you have mentioned in point 2.
Ghamid Sb’s understanding is, and I agree with it, that the word used in the condemnation in hadith is ‘mookilur riba’ which doesn’t mean the giver of riba but the one who enables riba to be eaten, like the agent of the charger of riba. The giver of riba is that poor chap whose plight has caused the Almighty to prohibit riba.
If you feel comfortable with the Lariba arrangements, please avail its facilities. However, my request is that you don’t make the life of those Muslims difficult who can get the facility of mortgage by claiming that mortgage is riba. Be sure that it is riba if you want to condemn it. I have strong reasons to believe that it is not riba. And Allah knows the best.