Islamic banking in western countries : Islamic banking in the Netherlands

السؤال

[Question One] : Salamoe'alaikoemwarahmatullah, I got your e-mail address from Miss Somia. I'm Rachida, I'm studying Arabic and Middle East studies and for my Master-thesis I'm examining the possibilities for Islamic financein Holland, especially Islamic mortgages. The reason why I send you this mail is because I have a question about a Murabaha contract related to a mortgage. Firstly in Holland the duration of a mortgage is 30 year. Because by a Murabaha the selling price is definitely, it is for a buyer almost impossible to move (house), the financial institution has namely the right on the whole selling price. This means that for example if a buyer wants to sell the house in 7 years, he has to pay the full amount inclusive the mark-up, whereby an Islamic mortgage in Holland will be much more expensive than an conventional one and in the most cases it will be impossible for the buyer to pay all the money and thus to move. This means an implicit move prohibition what in the Dutch law impermissible is. The Murabaha contract would be therefore expound as invalid. For this problem financial institutions are searching for solutions, one of the institutions is thinking about taking in a condition in the contract whereby the seller (the bank) is obliged to come towards the buyer. I have question marks by this solution because then the price is not definitely anymore. I'm very curious to your opinion about this. I hope you have the time to look to this and answer this question. This is the condition they want to take in the contract : "Might the buyer want to go over to sale of the pledge before all month terms are fulfilled, the seller is then obliged to consult with the buyer over the remaining month terms, by which the point of departure will be that the buyer will not be in a worse financial situation than when these redeem a traditional money loan." [Question Two] : Dzaijaka Allahughairan for your very fast response and your very clear and interesting answer! I really appreciate that ! I completely agree with you that a lease / purchase contract is much easier, but also for that contract there are unfortunately some complications in the Dutch law. After a little research some financial institutions came to the conclusion that a Murabaha-contract in combination with a mortgage would be the easiest to implement for a financial institution here in Holland. That's why they are looking for solutions for this form. For the same problem that I descibed in my former mail another financial institution came up to two other solutions, namely : 1) To close an assurance with an other party whereby the customer is guarantated, that if he sells the house before he redeems the full amount, that all the mark-up that he has to pay to the bank after selling the house will be paid back to him. Or 2) An unilateral testimony from the bank that if the client wants to sell the house before he redeems the full amount that the mark-up for the coming up years will be let off. Also here still remains the question if these two solutions fits within Islamic law. What's your opinion about these ? I hope I don't aggravate you with my questions. Thank you in advance ! DzaijakaAllah [Question Three] : DzaijaAllahuGhairan for your answer again. Firstly I want to apologize for taking your time. I truly understand your point (about the difference of giving Fatwa for personal use and for those who want to make money with) and you are really right about that point! I must say that I was ashamed for asking you a new question again. Please let it be clear that I really don't earn any money with this. I'm a student who's doing research for my master thesis about the possibilities to instutionalize Islamic finance in Holland and at this moment I have an internship at the ministry of Finance here in Holland to collect material for my research. During my internship we have several meetings with some Dutch financial institutions that are looking for solutions to offer Islamic mortgages that fits within the Dutch law. Some of the institutions came up with some solutions, but they are still not sure about the sharia-compliance. They asked me if I can ask sharia-experts if there solutions are in the right direction, before they really worked the product out, so that's why I mailed you those questions. I didn't send them your Fatwa. I just told them about your opinion, but never give them the Fatwa. So I think from now on it would be better for them to contact you and make appointments about the costs of getting a Fatwa etc. instead of let me be a kind of intercessor. Would you agree if I give your email address to one of the financial institutions, so you can make a compromise (if they want a Fatwa / Fatwa's / from you) ? Thank you in advance. Wa'laikoemsalam Warahmatullah,

جواب الفتوى

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تاريخ النشر

2007-05-11

التخصصات الرئيسية

العلوم الاقتصادية والمالية وإدارة الأعمال
الدراسات الإسلامية

عدد الصفحات

4

نوع البيانات

فتاوى

لغة النص

الإنجليزية

رقم السجل

BIM-787541

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