How strictly do Western Muslims hold to teachings on Riba etc.

[Jayne]

This is a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately - in a large part because of how I understand it's place in Jewish law, islamic law and how I believe it should be treated by Christians.

As I understand it, like Jews, Muslims can't borrow or lend for interest. At the moment I am debt free and had the ideal in my mind that I'd stay that way. I'd save up for my purchases, and stay off the credit. Now I'm back at work, I'm finding that very difficult to achieve - it probably isn't helped by the fact that I work for an insurer and deal with car policies all day. I've been spending my spare time looking for a new car because I could use an upgrade, and even went so far as getting a loan..

Now this is where I get confused. I've looked up the teachings on interest, and the teachings on insurance, and it seems that they're just ignored. I work with a Muslim, when insurance is apparently haram. I speak to Muslims regularly (I give leeway where it's a legal requirement, but outside that?).. so it makes me wonder. Is it just the "extremists" who don't go for it? And what do you do instead?

These days you can't buy a house for cash. No one has that kind of money - and (IMHO) that is because of the credit focused state we live in. If credit wasn't as readily available as it is, then housing wouldn't be the price it is. At least that's my logic, it's not perfect but there is definitely some sound economics behind it (just trust me - it's my degree).

So does the average Muslim just ignore these teachings, or am I just seeing a small minority?

I'm not sure why I'm even worried about this. I'm not Muslim, but I have a lot of respect for some of your teachings - to the point that I'm now looking for a new job and I'm trying to find one outside of insurance/banking. It's not why I'm looking for a new job, but I figured, whilst I'm at it, I might as well steer clear of areas I'm not sure on.

I'd probably be called legalistic amongst my Catholic circle.

[Ummi_Abdulmalik]

The only interest thing I know were allowed is a bank since its a necessity as jobs wont pay cash in hand but only into a bank account.

I only have a bank account, I'd love a house but it would mean riba so I rent.
I'd love a fancy new car but I'm saving up for a 6 grand car instead of a 20+grand car that's the latest model.

I think it depends on the people, some go through riba for house/car etc and some stay away from it completely.

[Ahmad]

Interest/usury is one of the biggest major sins, one of the 7 destructive sins, and the one who indulges in it is waging a war against Allah & His messenger. Therefore, no self-respecting Muslim would ever indulge in it unless it was (truly) unavoidable, or they were ignorant of the ruling, or they do not put any importance on the religion.

[Jayne]

I only have a bank account, I'd love a house but it would mean riba so I rent.
I'd love a fancy new car but I'm saving up for a 6 grand car instead of a 20+grand car that's the latest model.

You're a better person than me. I held the same view until very recently - now I'm working... I'm wondering about compromising. It doesn't help that Christians don't hold the same strict views, but I do believe we should. I should behave according to my conscience, not according to my wants.

*sigh* My car isn't so bad. I just have to keep repeating to myself that all that matters is that it runs and is hassle free. That it looks like a bomb doesn't matter. I'm still much better off than so many people. At the moment, I think the biggest thing stopping me getting a new car is my parents. They wouldn't support it at all, and given the level of support they showed when I was sick (the past 2/3 years), I would feel very disrespectful if I didn't take their advice on financial matters. That was all that kept me off the streets during that time.

Interest/usury is one of the biggest major sins, one of the 7 destructive sins, and the one who indulges in it is waging a war against Allah & His messenger. Therefore, no self-respecting Muslim would ever indulge in it unless it was (truly) unavoidable, or they were ignorant of the ruling, or they do not put any importance on the religion.

Does the same go for Insurance? I've read up on it on a number of Islamic sites, and they suggest it is akin to gambling (which suggests to me, they don't understand exactly what insurance is).

[from water]

How strictly do Western Muslims hold to teachings on Riba etc.

Not very strictly at all is the answer to this question. Few and rare are those who actually rent/buy one shot stuff for the sake of avoiding riba. Also Jews do borrow and lend with Riba, and in fact they are the ones who bought this practice to the west, when it was initially banned for Christians. They're just not allowed to do it to other Jews, but to screw a gentile over is perfectly fine.

Anyway, it is as Ahmad said, this is one of the most major sins. Because it causes a huge gap between the rich and the poor, and makes it so that eventually one end is pretty much enslaved to the other, which is what we see in societies today. You slave off after college to pay your quickly growing loans back, then you do the same for a house, then you do the same for a car. All the while causing property to increase in price because when you buy a 150,000$ house for 200,000 dollars, you're not going to sell it for 150,000$, and the person buying it from you is going to do the same thing you just did, and then what would they sell it for?

So yes, many Muslims do ignore this and just go ahead with loans because their local sheikh said it was perfectly fine. But I've seen many lose everything they have later on in life because of this decision, and I've seen how in my own family there was a point where, if we were mortgaging our house, we'd have lost it and been homeless because my father was out of a job for some years. Al hamdulilah though, my father takes this sort of thing seriously and does not deal with interest.

Also worth noting that many Muslims work at banks where they help others with interest based transactions, and that's also forbidden, but I'm seeing Muslims around me take up such jobs anyway because it's the only thing they've found at the moment. People simply do not take this bad practice seriously, and they don't realize it's the cause of so many problems in today's world which is why it's so forbidden. But it will come back to get them, Allah says he destroys/erases riba, so all that "money" is worthless to everyone, and I've seen it happen enough times to know without a doubt that dirty money benefits no one.

[cheesegirl]

A lot of Muslims will take a first homeloan because they follow the opinion that we have no other option for our first home since renting is difficult. But this applies to first homes only and they won't do it for cars, investment properties etc.

We do have an islamic bank, though it isn't the best. InshaAllah things get better for us.

[CVM]

Does the same go for Insurance? I've read up on it on a number of Islamic sites, and they suggest is akin to gambling (which suggests to me, they don't understand exactly what insurance is).[/QUOTE]

Yeh it is like gambling, you give a company a truck load of money on the off chance it could get hit or you could hit someone. Some shyukh say you can get insurance if out ifs a complete necessity in that country which some people believe ifs the case here..

Personally I think best to avoid grey areas on something so hated in our religion.. I rent, don't have insurance and I love my car got it on auction for a fraction of what it's worth, god gives.when you give up for him.. My cuz got a brand new car and all those extras she paid for fancy air bags n retracting seat failed her when she had an accident... New ifs never a guarantee

[cheesegirl]

I heard one shaykh say insurance is halal if the profit go back to the community and not into someones pocket. He said the TAC was an example if this. Shame there aren't more insurance agencies like this.

[from water]

god gives.when you give up for him..

Bingo.

Consider this situation. A man works as a coroner, he gets the body of a man murdered by cops in a brutal beating that left his brain a bloody mess. The coroner is told to say that this man was killed due to an overdose of cocaine rather than a beating, or there will be consequences (i. e. him losing his job). So you are now confronted with either shahadat az-zoor (false testimony, a major sin), or getting fired in a way that looks really bad. If you have a wife and two kids, and you all live in a mortgaged house, what do you do? Do you get fired and risk being homeless with your family, or do you go false testimony?

The fact is people are confronted with decisions like this all the time in life. You can't say certain things or do certain things for fear of losing your job, and depending on your situation (how deep in debt you are), that can mean losing pretty much everything you have. That's why we see those ugly family murder/suicides that happen every so often, it's because the IRS are coming for their homes.

Well the situation described above was exactly my father's situation, only he did not mortgage the house. He had bought it after years of renting. He did not testify falsely, got fired, and they didn't even pay him the 30,000 or so dollars they withheld from his paychecks for after retirement and all that. Had our house been mortgaged, we'd have been screwed properly. Those seven years were definitely not easy for the family, and there was one point where we literally had no money left after we borrowed from people, and nobody even knew. That same day when my father was wondering how he would even afford to refuel the car to take us to school, this completely random African American Muslim appears at our doorstep and just gives my father 3000$ on account that he heard my father helps people. Just like that. When Allah tells you that when you fear him, He will find you a way out, He's not joking. You're not going to be punished for going with the halal route, and you're not being stupid or unwise, rather the opposite. And you're going to see barakah in your belongings and in your du`aa'.

Anyway, my father did take his employers to court, and information about the corruption in that office did surface such that it became a very high profile case that went on for seven years and ended in the supreme court, where my father won that amount they owed him multiplied by a fairly large number, more than he would have made had he been working for those seven years as a doctor.

It's all about having tawakkul on Allah, He simply never lets people down if they believe in Him. Things will only look bad at that peak moment, and then everything will go smoothly. And you can see that happen in the time of the Messenger of Allah , in the battle of the trench. The Muslims were shaken severely in that event, as Allah mentions in the Qur'aan (surat Al-Ahzab, third page), but then it ended without the two sides even clashing.

[Luqman]

Hi.

Hire Purchase if structured properly can be an alternative to borrowing money for a car.

Takaful insurance is possible if it is not demutualized and the benefits / profits are put back into the organisation or distributed to members and not securityholders.

[mayk]

Does Takaful insurance exist in Australia?

[Luqman]

Does Takaful insurance exist in Australia?

http://www.hcf.com.au/

[mayk]

Thanks bro. Any car insurance company like hcf?

[Luqman]

Not that I am aware of....

I guess there are two ways to deal with it. Hope that you never have a problem, or that you have some kind of cover so that if you hit a big luxury barge you don't get bankrupted.

[Jayne]

Does the same go for Insurance? I've read up on it on a number of Islamic sites, and they suggest is akin to gambling (which suggests to me, they don't understand exactly what insurance is).

Yeh it is like gambling, you give a company a truck load of money on the off chance it could get hit or you could hit someone. Some shyukh say you can get insurance if out ifs a complete necessity in that country which some people believe ifs the case here..

Another way of looking at it, and the way that I tend to describe it to people, is as neighbours helping each other out. If one house on a street of 20 burnt down, the owners of that house couldn't, on their own, afford to rebuild. But if the neighbours came to an agreement that they would help each other in such a situation, then the house could be rebuilt. It's not gambling, it's been neighbourly.

We could achieve exactly the same outcome if we didn't pay for the insurance until after someone suffered a loss (and I'm sure you'd have no problem with it in that case), but for the ease of everyone involved we just add money to the community pool every year which people can use as needed.

[cheesegirl]

But jayne, where does the extra go? Into someones pocket. It is robbery. I agree with the senario you describe, but I don't want the company to be making millions in profit which they don't reinvest back into helping people and cutting insurance rates.

[CVM]

Lol I just inagined my neighbour rocking up and asking for.300 a month on the off chance my house is burnt fown n I need help, n an extra 50 to keep an eye out for robbers :-P and then if it does burn down it needs to meet their expectations of an appropriately burned down home for me to get assistance.. Sorry but i can not think of insurers like neighbours, more like the vultures up top wsiting to eat the remains of my burnt carcass lol

[Muslim..Priincess]

The real people that benefit from insurance is the companies themselves-I don't know why people thinking they're so smart when they have insurance.

@jayne-I would have wished to say that all muslims take it very strictly, but they don't-in one form or another. Even though I'm still a student and young to have to deal with insurance companies and the like, but I do take it seriously. Like HECs for example. But that's just me..

[Luqman]

I don't see the connection between insuramces and Hecate. The reason why the the large insurance companies and reinsurance companies exist is because people want to distribute risk. Now. Back in the days where companies were crested to explore the resources of the developing and new Wolds,people were concerned.aboutthe probability of their ship sinking or alternativley for the vessel to be pirated. Therefore mutual society established these entities so that in this costly event you weren't wiped out. Where this deviates from Islamic concepts of takaful is the introduction of rent seeking enterprises which run a pool of investible funds from coolllected in order to maximize their Perot's. Tue insurance game isn't as simple as collect premiums and pay claims but to gather all premiums into afloat and use this money to invest and pay out only what you need. This is different from an inflationjndexing Loan like hecs

[Luqman]

Forgive spelling I'm on phone. Hecate is hecs