Is it permissible to buy a house from a bank through a Murabaha to the purchaser system, where the bank buys the house and then sells it to the client with fixed installments for the first five years, then variable installments, due to the difficulty of finding alternative housing and fear of eviction? And if this is Riba (usury), then if one sells the house before paying the variable installments, would the suspicion of Riba be removed thereby?
The bank's purchase of a house and its sale to a customer at a profit (murabaha sale) is permissible if several conditions are met, the most important of which are: the bank must own and possess the house before selling it, the bank must not take an advance payment from the customer, and the contract must be free of usurious conditions or anything that contradicts its essence. For the sale to be valid, the price must be known at the time of the contract. Therefore, it is not permissible if the profit is variable or the installments are unknown, due to the ambiguity of the price and the suspicion of usury therein. The Islamic Fiqh Academy has ruled that selling at a variable deferred price is prohibited due to the ambiguity of the price and the suspicion of usury, while it has permitted leasing with a variable rent under certain conditions. Accordingly, purchasing a house in this manner is not permissible, as the purchase itself is invalid due to the ambiguity of the price.
Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026
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