Community Member Organisation 

The impossible interest free dream
As all Muslims know, the paying or receiving of interest (Riba) is absolutely forbidden in the Qur’an.
As Muslims in Australia know, it is virtually impossible to avoid paying and receiving interest in Australia.

• Firstly banks pay interest and we need to keep our money somewhere. With most of us we actually loose money by the time bank charges and other costs are taken from our accounts. Even in this case interest is still shown on our account.

• As we become adults we need to purchase a car, apply for a credit card and hopefully to eventually obtain a housing loan and then we are on the interest paying treadmill which most of us will never get off.

For most of us we will be breaking one of the basic tenants of the Qur’an but what can we do about it. We live in Australia.
We are taught to believe in the Qur’an and that, if we follow what is written, we will be successful in life and everything that we require will be given to us.
Some may say what a load of garbage. It is virtually impossible to avoid interest in Australia. If we tried to be totally faithful to Islam we would never be able to own a home of our own. This is one of those absolute rules in the Qur’an that we must turn our back on or invent wording that makes us feel good. Of course this also applies to many other rules of the Qur’an that we tend to ignore for one reason or another but I will not get into that here.

Stop and think about why we cannot obtain interest free finance in Australia.

• Is it possible that we just do not believe enough in the power of the words of the Qur’an to provide us with what we need to be successful in our lives? If we believe that the Qur’an is the Word of Allah (SWT) then surely we must believe that interest free finance is possible even in Australia.

• Everyone says that someone should do something about the problem. The problem with that is that the someone we want to do all the work for us is everyone and that is all of us and we are not doing anything to solve the problem.

• If you and everyone in the Muslim community did something toward solving this problem then we would find a solution.

• I know you do not have time as you need to work extra time to pay the extra interest fees that are being dumped on your account so you will be forced to leave it to someone else to solve the problem so you can eventually benefit from their hard work.

• Stop blaming everyone else for this problem and do something about a solution. You will then have a bit more time to spend with your family as your mortgage repayments will be halved.

• We only need to unite the Muslim community in Australia behind one idea to make this work but I doubt that it would be possible to do that for even this one problem.

Prove me wrong with everything that I have written above and I will be as happy as you are when you show me how to obtain an interest free mortgage in Australia.
I went to a lot of trouble to find a so called "Sharia Approved" loan for a unit only to receive a loan statement from a different organisation 12 months later showing the interest repayments. I sold the unit and now pay rent.

Just one small word of advice first.
Your criticism will not worry me in any way as I have heard it all before. I want you to react to this and do something about this problem instead of complaining about what everyone else haven’t done. 

Objectives

• To bring the true greatness of Islam to the general Australian population by example.

• To start an organisation that will work toward that end.

• To include all Australians in the benefits of the organisation.

• We will start a community organisation that will benefit all Australians regardless of race or religion.

• Ongoing fees will be payable to the organisation that will be used to benefit all members of the community organisation.

• Some income will be used to offer true interest free loans in times of need.

• Investigate various business opportunities that can be used to increase the money available to the organisation to help expand it’s ability to offer these loans in both quantity and size until they can be expanded to include housing and business loans that would be true Islamic finance working on a profit or loss sharing format as prescribed in the Qur’an.

• To remove wording from loan documents that represent interest in words that are meant to disguise interest. I.e.  “rent”, “fees”, etc. To repay a loan of 200,000 over 20 years requires repayments of $834 per month. If you are paying $1581 per month then the “Interest” is 7.25% and the interest over 20years is 179,380. It is only using words and deception to say that the $1581 per month is rental or any other term.

• Offer support and financial assistance in times of emergency.

• Recognise the importance of both men and women in this organisation if it is to succeed in the same way that the Qur’an demands equality.

• Invite established businesses to become active participants in the organisation by offering discounts to community members.

• Businesses started by the community organisation will employ organisation members. Employees will then be a part of the business knowing that profits from the business will be there to assist them with their future requirements.

• Source / produce Dawah material that will be made available to all Australians from outlets that are available to all Australians.

What can you do?

You can contact me using the contact form or at jalal@islam-australia.com.au and we can discuss this further. I have many ideas how to make this happen but this is bigger than one person. If enough people contact me then we will have a group of like minded people and we can then work toward a goal that we set. With enough Muslims working together we can make this happen. There are more arguments against this idea than there are for it but I still believe in the greatest argument of all and that is the Qur’an and the words of Allah(SWT).

Jalal