Web Articles & Fatwas

Newfoundland and Labrador never wrote a land transfer tax at all - its whole consolidated revenue statute taxes gasoline, payroll, horse racing, insurance, mining, retail sales, tobacco and vapour, and reaches land only to let a lien attach to it - and yet it is the most expensive jurisdiction read anywhere in this corpus for a riba-free purchaser, because the price of putting a deed on the register is charged on the value of the property, charged again for every further instrument by an express rule that each one is separate, capped at five thousand dollars for a mortgage and for a charge but not for a conveyance, and set nowhere in the statute book: the Act's regulation-making power has no fee limb, no fees regulation exists among the province's one thousand six hundred and sixty-three consolidated regulations, and the only document that states an amount is a departmental schedule the Minister dated two years before the Act it is now collected under

home-financeregulationpropertycanadanewfoundland-and-labradorprimary-source+4

Nova Scotia taxes the same deed twice, from two levels of government, and the municipal half only exists if a council has passed a by-law saying so: the Municipal Government Act defines "deed" to exclude a mortgage, an agreement of sale and a lease for a term of less than twenty-one years - the first tax treatment read anywhere in this corpus that turns on how long a lease runs - while the whole vocabulary of lending enters its tax Part exactly once, in one sentence, to relieve a Crown farm lender conveying to a borrower

home-financeregulationtaxpropertycanadanova-scotia+4

Prince Edward Island names only ONE financing party in its transfer tax and it is the conventional mortgagee - named three times, every time after default, every time to be relieved: the Real Property Transfer Tax Act writes "loan", "lender", "credit", "borrow" and "financial institution" zero times, its single "finance" is a Minister's title, and the one door that would fit a riba-free purchase is keyed to holding "in trust on his or her behalf", so the real ownership that makes the structure riba-free is what puts it outside the door

home-financeregulationtaxpropertycanadaprince-edward-island+4

Manitoba never relieved the mortgage - it left it out of the taxed event: Part III of The Tax Administration and Miscellaneous Taxes Act charges on tendering a "transfer", and the definition of "transfer" excludes a mortgage, so the interest-bearing loan is never taxed while a financier who takes title is; the Part writes no relief, no counting rule and no regulation power, and its one religious category is borrowed from a federal definition that requires members to own no property in their own right

home-financeregulationtaxpropertycanadamanitoba+4

Alberta made the ABSENCE OF INTEREST the test - section 64.1(4.1) of the Land Titles Act switches off the transfer levy on the riba-free financier's own registration because no interest is payable under the mortgage, not because of who the financier is, and Alberta prescribed the affidavit and the fee to go with it

home-financeregulationtaxpropertycanadaalberta+4

Saskatchewan wrote no relief and no counting rule - the Land Titles Act, 2000 keeps the price of the riba-free buyer's extra registration outside the statute book in a ministerial order, will not let that registration be sworn at a nominal value, and offers only the Registrar's unconditioned discretion to waive; yet its definition of "mortgage" is the first read anywhere here that reaches past a debt or loan, and its own published mortgage wording assumes interest

home-financeregulationtaxpropertycanadasaskatchewan+4

British Columbia never wrote the word "loan" into its transfer tax - it built a once-only rule around the agreement for sale instead, and the one place religion appears in the whole body of law relieves the congregation's land rather than the believer's home

home-financeregulationcanadainstitutionsmurabahaijarah+4

Québec put its financing relief inside the DEFINITION of "transfer", not in an exemption - and it is the first jurisdiction read here whose exemption list is closed on the face of the statute, so the negative finding is finally exhaustive

home-financeregulationtaxpropertycanadaquebec+4

Australia's duties statute books, read as far as they can be read - the Northern Territory wrote no exception for riba-free purchases, and its Act states in its own words the counting rule the other three legislatures wrote their exceptions to: the Stamp Duty Act 1978 (NT)

home-financeregulationaustraliainstitutionsmurabahamusharakah-mutanaqisah+3

Canada's provincial layer, opened - Ontario legislated against paying land transfer tax twice, headed the rule "Tax only paid once", and then relieved financing transfers only where a debt and a creditor could be pointed to

home-financeregulationcanadainstitutionsmurabahamusharakah-mutanaqisah+3

Two more findings from a third Australian statute book - the ACT rebuilt Victoria's four riba-free structures in its own words in 2023, then opened a third door for a non-bank financier and, on the regulation as published, walked nobody through it: Division 2.5.2A of the Duties Act 1999 (ACT)

home-financeregulationaustraliainstitutionsmurabahamusharakah-mutanaqisah+4

Victoria was not alone - Tasmania wrote two riba-free home-finance sequences into its duties statute in 2022, relieved the second transfer, and tied the relief to the Commonwealth banking perimeter: section 57B of the Duties Act 2001 (Tas)

home-financeregulationaustraliainstitutionsmurabahamusharakah-mutanaqisah+3

An Australian State did legislate for riba-free home finance - Victoria wrote the mechanics of four structures into its duties statute in 2004 and relieved the second transfer from duty, without once saying Islam, Shariah or Muslim: sections 57A to 57F of the Duties Act 2000 (Vic)

home-financeregulationaustraliainstitutionsmurabahaijara+4

Canada never defined a halal mortgage - it defined interest, and defined it by function rather than by name: the Criminal Code test that ignores what a payment is called, the Interest Act refusal to cap any agreed rate, and the one federal rule that forbids exactly what the prohibition is about

home-financeregulationcanadainstitutionsribamurabaha+5

Australia never wrote a law about Islamic home finance - it wrote a definition of credit that reaches one anyway: the National Credit Code on deferred debt, and the two sections that deem the mark-up over the cash price to be the charge for providing credit

home-financeregulationaustraliainstitutionsmurabahaijara+4

The letter that made halal home finance possible in the United States - and the uncomfortable fact that the permission was granted by establishing that the product is economically identical to the interest-bearing mortgage it exists to avoid: OCC Interpretive Letter #806

home-financeregulationunited-statesinstitutionsijaramurabaha+3

The binding regulatory standard that PERMITS the contract the OIC Fiqh Academy prohibits — Bank Negara Malaysia's 'Tawarruq' policy document (BNM/RH/PD 028-8, issued 28 December 2018): a central bank's mandatory Shariah requirements for the single most contested instrument in modern Islamic finance, including its own Appendix 1 admission that 'There is no direct juristic authority from the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace be upon him) regarding the legitimacy of the tawarruq'

tawarruqislamic-financeribaregulationinstitutionsscholarly-disagreement+3

The definition that decides which halal home-finance products the United Kingdom actually supervises - article 63F of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001, and the striking fact that it defines a 'regulated home purchase plan' without once using the words Islam, Shariah, Muslim, riba, mortgage or interest

home-financeregulationunited-kingdominstitutionsmusharakah-mutanaqisahijara+3

How do you PROVE a financial right or a contract when there is no witness — is an electronic signature or an email enough? Resolution No. 194 (9/20) 'Legal Evidence by Presumptions and Signs (Latest Updates)' is the OIC Fiqh Academy's settled ruling that modern peremptory presumptions — fingerprints, audio recording, electronic signatures, emails — may be relied on to prove financial rights and contracts, everything except the ḥudūd and qiṣāṣ.

evidenceprooflegal-evidencepresumptionsqarinahelectronic-signature+8

The corpus's FIRST primary OIC text written FOR Muslims living in the West — the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC), Resolution No. 23 (11/3), 'Answering the Questions of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) in Washington, DC', adopted at the Academy's 3rd session in Amman, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Every other primary ruling in this corpus was written about a contract; this one was written about a life — a Muslim minority's, in a country whose banks, employers and high streets are not built for it. Its Question 28 is the most directly load-bearing answer in the entire corpus for this site's core subject: buying a house, a car or furniture on an interest-bearing bank loan, asked with the reader's own strongest objection built into the question — that renting or leasing usually costs MORE each month than the bank's instalment. The Academy's approved answer, in full: 'This type of transaction is not permissible in Shariah.'

islamic-financemuslims-in-the-westminority-fiqhfiqh-al-aqalliyyatribainterest+31

What may an Islamic market actually be built from? Resolution No. 74 (5/8) 'Shariah Applications for the Islamic Market' is the OIC Fiqh Academy's own map of it — six instrument families, five of them disposed of by pointing at a ruling the Academy had already issued, one rule restated in its own voice, and a published list of the seven things it admitted it had not yet worked out.

islamic-marketislamic-financial-marketcapital-marketsinstrumentssharesequity+35

Who owns the driveway, the water pipe, the parking bay — and the right to build above your flat? Resolution No. 171 (9/18) 'Easement Rights and their Contemporary Applications in Common Property' is the OIC Fiqh Academy's settled ruling on the everyday property rights that sit between one owner's home and the next — water, drainage, passage, the airspace above a storey, utility lines and parking — grounded on one plain maxim: in principle, utilities are permissible while harms are prohibited.

propertyproperty-rightseasement-rightshuquq-al-irtifaqcommon-propertyhome-ownership+20

Who pays for the prize? Resolution No. 127 (1/14) 'Contests Cards' is the OIC Fiqh Academy's settled ruling on the everyday face of maysir — prize draws, entry coupons, paid competition calls, promotional giveaways and the airline and hotel points card — turning on one test: a competition is gambling the moment its prize is funded by the people competing for it.

maysirgamblingcontestsprize-drawsrafflescompetitions+8

A broker offers you a commodity 'future' — is it halal? Resolution No. 147 (5/16) 'International Commodities and their Trading Standards' is the OIC Fiqh Academy's ruling on which commodity-market contracts a riba-free investor may touch: spot with real possession is fine, but the cash-settled future that dominates the market is prohibited.

commoditiesinternational-commoditiescommodity-futuresfuturesorganized-marketsfinancial-markets+20