No Place to Live and Is Obliged to Pay Riba If He Rents

5-5-2020 | IslamWeb

Question:

Selam aleikom
I acumulated some debts during my time as student due to illness. This was 5 years ago. This debts are recorded in a national register and stay there for 20 years. Because of this Certificates of unpaid debts I can not find a rental property.
There are two ways how I can pay this debts.
1. I open the case again and I can pay the debt part-time with a interested forced from law of 5%. Let say CHF 10000 over 2 years I pay CHF 10450.
2. I aply for a credit of CHF 6000 with 5.9-9.9 % interested. I can pay cash my Certificates of unpaid debts with a discount of 40%.
BarakaAllahu fikom
Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allaah exalt his mention ) is His slave and Messenger.

Having a place to live in is one of the basic needs that human beings cannot do without. If you do not own a place to live in, and you cannot afford to rent one unless you repay that debt, and there is no way to repay it except through the two options mentioned in the question: reopening the case, which makes you liable to the interest rate imposed on the debt, or requesting a Riba-based loan which incurs interest as well, then there is nothing wrong with choosing one of the two options within the scope of need only. Note that necessity must be evaluated according to its proper magnitude. Therefore, you should choose the option that incurs the lower interest rate.

Allah Knows best.

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