Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
What is the sunna regarding writing down loans?
In the Name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful.
The majority of scholars have stated that it is recommended to record loans in writing, as the ‘verse of lending’ in the Qur’an indicates.
Allah says in the Qur’an:
“O you who believe when you borrow from another for a time stated, write it down, and let a writer write it down justly between you, and let not the writer refuse to write according as Allah has taught him…” (Qur’an, 2: 282)
This order to ‘write it down,’ is understood to be an order of guidance (irshad), not obligation.
It is especially important if one fears that the loan may be somehow forgotten or denied.
[Based on the entry in the Mawsu`a al-Fiqhiyya ( Kuwait )]
Ilyas Patel & Faraz Rabbani.