Here are the facts: 1. LARIBA NEVER starts from Interest Rates. Our Model starts with the actually surveyed market rent of a similar house/property in the same neighborhood and with the same specifications. These are actual documented market values obtained from realtors. You get 3 estimates and LARIBA gets 3 estimates. Riba banks rent you the money at a rent called interest rate. LARIBA jointly invests in the property using a lease-to-purchase model. 2. The model used is the same as that sanctioned by the PIONEERING ULAMA in Islamic Banking & Finance based on their fatwas issued in Algiers meeting in 1990. An abbreviated list includes: the eminent scholars: Shkh. Qaradawi (Egypt/Qatar), Shkh. Sami Hamoud (Jordan), Shkh. Dhareer (Sudan), Shkh. Abu-Ghuddah (Syria) and many others. 3. The model we use, which is called Islamabad, was developed with Shkh. Taqi Usmani when we were financing the home of his cousin Dr. Ansari in Orange County. 6. LARIBA never advertises. We rely mostly on a word of mouth referral of satisfied brothers & sisters. I am pleased to report that many hundred (even thousand) of brothers & sisters honored us and gave us their trust to serve them. We have been serving the community since 1987. We are very thankful to Allah that we are owned by the community in America. We did not go hat-in-hand asking others to put their money. We members of the community put our “money where our mouth is.”
If the La-Riba institute follows the procedure of the Diminishing Partnership Contact as explained by Mufti Taqi Usmani Saheb in his book, ‘Islamic Finance’, then it will be permissible.
If the institute is required by law to put the monthly payment in a traditional mortgage programme, it will be excused for doing so. However, the interest obtained under such circumstances must be given in charity to the poor and needy.
and Allah Ta’ala Knows Best
Mufti Ebrahim Desai