MoneyMatters – All About Riba QA 2

Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh there's a question on Muslims of today take loan to the bank and in the Western world they just tried to give it deems like masataka mudaraba murabaha they completely fall or they are Haram. Now, since you have used masataka, modaraba and murabaha, I would understand that you're saying that these are Muslims who take loans through an Islamic bank in western countries. However, these are nothing and they are given names like misura comodoro, bondora. However, they seem to be like any conventional loan. Look, as I mentioned in my session, whenever we say is such and such system permissible or not permissible is the loan from foreign bank

or foreign bank allowed or not allowed. I have to go through the agreement, I have to see the terms of agreement. Alright, I need to know who the Sharia scholars or supervisors are. Unless and until I have those details. It's very difficult for me to make a blanket

give my blanket opinion of views on these subjects. However, I must confess that I know there are a few Islamic banks out there who are trying to

sell you loans etc. And they are nothing but offering you backdoor Riba and if that is the case, then this is not permissible.

There was a particular question which was asked with reference to the credit card, and this was in reference to the opinion of Darul uloom Deoband, if Darul uloom Deoband allows the usage of credit card then what is the ruling on using of reward points. As far as the reward points is concerned, the view of the loom in this regard is that if this is not

rewards which were given to you, by virtue of you depositing money into your credit card. So in cases of transactions, what happens is, you could either prepay into your credit card, and then go out and make purchases. So automatically the money which you had deposited into your credit card, they settled it off with your purchase,

if on depositing of that advance money into your credit card, which is basically your money, but you've deposited it into your credit card, and by virtue of making your payments are depositing money into your credit card, you are paid some rewards, then this is considered as interest. Because that's your money, you've put in some money, and now they're giving you some reward for that. However, if this is as a reward for using the card, you have made some purchases and you've got some price, then they say you can utilize the benefits, however, that the FDA wants to keep it safe, they say that if you feel that these things could be interest in situations like this, you should try

avoiding it. In my personal opinion, if you feel that there is a very thin line and you are not certain about what would be the source of that money, it could be an end, akin to a robot. In a situation like this, you can simply withdraw the money, the reward that you have received, and you can distribute it. Normally these rewards are not in the form of money, they are always in the form of you know, you can exchange it and buy some vouchers and so on and so forth. You could do that in sha Allah, instead of converting it into cash. You can use that vouchers to buy something for the poor and distributed to the poor. There's a question on educational loan, are educational loans

permitted? The answer is if it is an educational loan, which comes at a cost and interest, it is not allowed. Generally what happens with an education loan is there is a period where you don't have to repay anything. So if you are taking a loan for a three year or four year study for four years, you don't have to pay anything. And then after that you're expected to acquire a job. So for the first six months of your job, you are given another additional moratorium period where you don't have to make any payments from the seventh month of you completing your studies, you are now expected to pay back the principal that you had borrowed along with an interest if there is an interest component

involved here, this kind of an educational loan is not permitted. So then the next question is, what can Muslim do I mean, he will get deprived to study in big institutions. My firm belief is that beneficial knowledge is something which only Allah gives beneficial knowledge comes from Allah subhanho wa Taala. So we have to not

limit our thoughts to acquiring knowledge only from reputed institutions, even if it means we borrow money at interest. You cannot

Hope of attaining beneficial knowledge by doing an act of sin which is dealing in interest, you can't hope of waging a war against a lion is Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam. And then hope that by studying in the Harvard or in the Oxford using an interest based loan, I will be acquiring beneficial knowledge SubhanAllah. That's not possible, right. So what we have to do is, if our means are limited, we can still study within our means and put additional effort

and try to put in our best effort.

so that we are able to acquire the knowledge. What they do in the Western countries nowadays is

they start working early, so that they are able to fund their own education. Many of them complete their graduation and start working, they work for 1012 years, and then they take a sabbatical for a couple of years, so that they can come back to study, get an additional degree and then apply for higher jobs. There are ways to do it. Unfortunately, in the indo Pak culture, we are grown up and we are brought up in a machine like environment where you have to move from one process to the other process to the other process, you need to be super qualified before you hit the job market. And in order to become super qualified since you You are not working, you're expecting your parents to take

care of your expenses and your parents have got Mashallah three children, five children, it always becomes a extra financial stress on them. So they think of other alternatives like taking loans, etc. Taking loans and doing your education is not going to bring any benefit.

There's another question which is with regards to students studying chartered accountancy, during articleship, we have to practically demonstrate the learning and when a person becomes a qualified chartered accountant will need to analyze and check and issue report on the firm's financial records is one of our duties. Now, what is the opinion about this? Would this be going against the Sharia? I have summarized the entire question coming to the response to this question which has been asked, we need to again, go back and see what are the opinions of the scholars with regards to this. Now, first and foremost, we need to understand that the job of a chartered accountant is equally

important in the system in which we are right now because we need Muslim Chartered Accountants to guide the Muslim investors into saving taxes from the halaal manner. Unfortunately, most of the Chartered Accountants who are out there will try to offer you tax saving schemes. And in order to do that they don't care what is Sharia compliant? And what is not Sharia compliant? So in order to have someone who is well versed with Sharia guidelines, who has a good knowledge of Islamic banking and finance principles, and he is a chartered accountant that is going to benefit the society, it's going to go into benefit Dilma point number one. Point number two, my personal opinion is that there

is a need for Chartered Accountants who have a good knowledge of what is rubber, and what are the permissible transactions and non permissible transactions to come into the system. By simply staying away from that job, are we benefiting the community because you need to understand the entire system is revolving around these roles, the finance system, you need accountants in the finance system. And these accountants if you have a strong power bargaining power bar to represent your voice in different platform, you can make a lot of difference in the society. This is my personal opinion you could actually pursue your studies in chartered accountancy and I understand during your articleship

and your learning period, you might be exposed to overseeing certain interest transactions and giving your opinions and so on and so forth. Now, in a situation like this, what I say see this as is a learning a practice whereby you understand how this interest based system is working, so that you are better equipped to find the solution find an alternative. That's how I see it. However, if you feel you are not that enterprising, and you are not a person who will be able to take it forward. My personal suggestion is doing a chartered accountancy and after that further your career career by taking a certified Islamic financial planner course and there are a lot of other courses

which are being put up for offer. There are courses being offered by IO fee.

You can check out some of those courses or courses in auditing which is being offered by them. You can actually do these additional costs. So the Chartered accountancy Murli works as a degree that helps you

Move to the next level. Now, right? That is my personal suggestion. Now, the opinion of Mufti Taqi Usmani on this subject was that the job that you do as an actor in the accounts department now, this is different from an accountant Okay, an accountant is different than accounts department is different, but you can actually draw parallels in the sense that they have to oversee transactions they have to oversee what the business is doing the business may be taking loan may be dealing in interest based transactions. So, as an accountant in a firm, I might have to oversee those transaction. So, the view of data fields money in a situation like this is concerned is that a job

in an account department of any company is allowable, if one has to maintain only the account of the company, and then he will not be considered to be helping in the sense and does it shall not be haraam rather, it is a distant help. Hence, this job seems allowable only at the time of need. However, if that can be avoided, it is better and as I told you, the best way to avoid this, do not limit yourself to merely becoming a chartered accountant think of what you need to do at the next level. All right, there's another question which is are there really any rubber free mortgages for home? Of course there is it isn't that there aren't. And as I told you, we can actually structure

such products provided we have well intention, well meaning people in the society who don't intend to do fraud or do cheating or deceit, but certainly there are rebuff remote gauges which are there. It's difficult to pinpoint right now, because the question is now from us, so you will have to share with me what are the available options over there and then I can get back to you inshallah, Allah, how can we save ourselves from Riba in this day and age. Now, this is something which is going to become extremely challenging, because as we see globalization taking place, and it's already taken place, and you can see how well, countries are connected with each other economies are connected

with each other.

And because of this interlinked system, the

essence of Aruba of the depths of Aruba has managed to enter every single household. I mean, let me give you a very simple example, some of the basic stuff that you require for your existence, for example, you need a toothpaste, and that toothpaste is from

Unilever. And Unilever, if you go to the books of accounts, you'll find that they've taken rubab as loans. And that interest that they have to pay for these rubber based loans, they include it in the cost of manufacturing. So the per unit cost that you have to pay for the Colgate, or for the Unilever toothpaste that you're buying includes an element of rebar in it,

do you realize that,

that you are participating in Roma, without even realizing it. So this is something which is unavoidable.

Because this is not something that you opted for, you didn't ask Unilever to take a loan. And how is a common man expected to go through the balance sheet of all the companies and then decide which are the companies where I should be buying from. So one of the ways you can save yourself from the robot is if you know that there are people who are promoting halaal business halaal ventures, try buying from them try promoting the business, even if it means that they are charging you slightly higher than others in the competition. Naturally, companies like Unilever and big brands are able to lower the cost. But startups tend to charge a little high because they don't have the economies of scale.

They're not able to produce in large numbers. It's only when they start growing that they will be able to do that. So my personal opinion is as far as possible, try and promote businesses, ventures which are running on halaal basis if you are in a country where you have such opportunities. However, if you are not then you must try and restrict your interaction with the robot based institutions as far as possible. For example, if you are in a country where there are no say Islamic banks, then as far as the conventional banks are concerned, you limit your transactions to Murli opening a current account and add the most maybe if you need to use a locker facility with the bank

to keep your important documents. You can take that service because here the bank provides a service and they charge you a certain fee for opening the locker and that is normally a yearly charge. They keep charging it every year. So my point here is the way

To save yourself from robot is by trying to make sure as far as possible, we live within our means. We don't have to aspire to be like Mr. Fallen and fallen who is our neighbor. If Allah has given him more, and he's able to afford more, it does not mean because we live in the same community and same society, we need to match up and in order to do that, we take rubber based loans. Rather, we have to look at those who are below us in materialistic matters, so that we are able to value and appreciate what Allah has given us. And as far as the knowledge of the deen is concerned, you look at those who are above you, this way you will be aspiring to have more knowledge of the deen. So, my take on this

matter is the best way to save yourself from grubba is to do the small things right. Try and save yourself from interacting with financial institutions as far as possible, limit your interactions to merely a current account or a locker which you need to use, try avoiding using credit cards if you can restrict to using debit cards limited to a debit cards as far as possible. So, in every possible step wherever you can minimize your interaction minimize it, you may come across certain fatwas and opinions as we have discussed which may permit using certain instruments. But my point here is if we have to

keep ourselves protected, we need to take these little little steps small steps and inshallah Allah once we do this on a regular basis, it becomes a part of our habit, and inshallah tada if everyone starts doing this. It's actually going to put more pressure Imagine if the entire community in a certain country come together and decide that we will strictly adhere to the basic guidelines and limit our transactions to merely say a current account and a locker. So what happens is the financial institutions will now come under severe pressure.

This is one of the ways to do it. And Allah knows best