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Is a bank loan for finishing the house of someone in need permissible or forbidden, especially with the unavailability of alternatives and its not being for recreational purposes?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The nature of bank loans varies; some are forbidden, which is the predominant type, such as loans that involve interest for the bank, while others are permissible, though these are few. Usury (riba) is one of the grave destructive sins and is not permissible except in cases of legitimate necessity (ḍarūrah shar‘iyyah). This refers to a state of extreme danger and severe hardship that results in harm to one's life, limb, honor, intellect, or wealth, in which case committing a forbidden act becomes permissible to avert the harm. Building or furnishing a home is not a necessity that permits usurious borrowing, unless one cannot find housing through another permissible means, such as renting. Whoever abstains from usury out of fear of Allah, Allah will compensate him with something better.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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