Difference Between Riba and Mortgage

Omar was doing his best as a husband and father. His new job required him to live in an expensive part of the country, where real estate came at a premium.  Family homes in his area cost half a million dollars!

Having a third child made the family budget even tighter.  Still, Omar was proud that he could support his wife and children.

They lived in a safe and comfortable rented home, and they always had enough to eat and clothes to wear.

He was saving as much money as he could, but it wasn’t very much.

Omar knew he could get a loan from a bank to get a mortgage on one of those half-million-dollar homes, but he and his wife agreed that they did not want to deal with riba, interest, since it was haraam.

Maybe someday they could relocate to a more affordable part of the country and buy a home with cash.

Until then, Omar and his wife agreed that renting was their only option.

But then Omar’s relatives decided to chime in.

“What are you doing, wasting all that money on rent?” demanded his father.

“All those years you could have been paying a mortgage and building equity in a home!”

“Baba, I don’t want to deal with riba,” explained Omar, trying to be patient.

“The fact is, you can’t function in this country without riba,” protested his uncle. “It’s inevitable!

If you want the best for your family, you need to own a home. To own a home, you need to take a mortgage!”

“But Islam strictly forbids it,” protested Omar.

“Islam is supposed to be easy, not hard,” asserted Omar’s father. “It’s not your fault that you live in a country where all the banks deal with riba.  Allah knows your circumstances.  Surely He will understand.”

“Besides,” added his uncle, “What if something happened to you? What if you died and your wife and kids were left with nothing? At least if you owned a home, you would build equity in it, and they would have a place to live.”

Omar suddenly had a vision of his wife and children alone, with no income, no home, and no money to fall back on.

It frightened him. For the first time, he thought that maybe riba wasn’t such a big deal, after all.

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