Ribā-Based Mortgages inDār al-Harb: An Issue of Modernist Application ofFiqh al-Aqalliyātfor Muslim Minorities

The growing presence of Muslims in the occident living as minorities in majority non-Muslim countries comes with inherent religious challenges. How can occidental Muslims live faithfully in cultures that cause perceivable “hardship” without compromising their religio-legal obligations? Is fiqh al-aqalliyāt the answer to this problem, if at all there is a problem? As a sample of the so-called “hardship”, this paper looks at the issue of occidental Muslims taking out ribā (interest or usury) based loans in order to buy a house, to test the theory of whether or not a new legal doctrine is required to facilitate Muslim needs facing exceptional circumstances. Is it a clash between classical and contemporary scholarship or an inevitable pre-modern evolution of Islamic jurisprudence? This article argues that juristic opinions, whether classical or contemporary do not justify any actions, because their opinions are first and foremost non-binding and secondly a result of their endeavor to come to an edict....