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Fatwa CenterTaking mortgage to buy house
Question
I have been living in a non-Muslim country and have suffered a lot of abuse due to practicing my religion. My daughter wears the hijab and my wife wears the niqab, and we have been abused almost all the time for following Islam. I have personally been attacked by a group of racist men and was hospitalised for many days as a result. A Muslim should not reside in a non-Muslim country, and I understand this, but my parents migrated there and I was born there, so it was not my choice. After years of attempting to move to a Muslim country, I have finally found a very conservative city in Morocco where we can practice our religion well, praise be to Allaah. Everything here is perfect, except for accommodation. We have saved some money, but it is not enough to buy a property, so the only option that we have is to rent a property. This is extremely difficult here. The problem is that the landlord can ask you to leave the property at any given moment with a short notice, and you are then left homeless. My wife has already experienced this on three occasions with three separate properties, where the landlord asked her to leave the property for no reason and a whole day was spent homeless, in search for a property to rent. Now the same scene may unfold once again with the current landlord, saying that he wants students to take our current apartment. It is extremely hard being expelled from your property all the time, often with short notice, and often roaming the streets while homeless, with a child who has many health issues. The best option for us would be to buy a property. I cannot afford to purchase the property outright, however, I could afford a mortgage. The problem here is that this would be a loan based on interest. I can easily afford the deposit and monthly payments, Allaah willing, but I am afraid to enter into an interest-based contract with a bank and be at war with Allaah! As there is no alternative in our case, is a single interest-based mortgage permissible in order to obtain a secure home?
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
It is not permissible for you to take a loan with interest in order to buy a house to live in as long as you can afford to rent an adequate accommodation.
It is only in cases of necessity that interest becomes permissible for a person. To learn about the limits of necessity that makes it permissible to borrow money with interest , please refer to fatwa 120569.
Allaah knows best.
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