Thinking Different About Riba Factories

Over the last 50 years of housing in America, the price of a median home has grown six times compared to the median income. Of course, this is a median, and there are several areas where the median income and median sale prices are much closer, but it still points to a growing problem. One big driver of this issue is a lack of housing supply. However, the way homes are currently being built by grouping homes of the same style and little character isn’t inspiring, nor is it beautiful. Housing was once seen as a necessity for human life, and it still is. However, it has become the main asset of the middle class, and by extension, we’ve seen a rapid financialization of housing. There is a growing desire to create beautiful communities with walkable towns and solid local emphasis. However, within the Muslim community, there’s a big push to create Muslim housing developments that fit an old model. Partially driven by hostilities towards Muslims but also driven by a practical need to have your community close by and the implementation of the Ummah environment. However, in this effort, many of these communities fall back on the old style and are often for the wealthy. Additionally, it is contributing to the wider issue of the proliferation of interest in our communities. Ultimately, leading neighborhoods that don’t have a soul and feel more like “riba factories.”

A home is no longer a place to live; it is a financial instrument, and the Muslim community has fallen prey to an even worse version of these financial instruments. Many of the institutions offering halal lending to individual families are outright predatory and very marginally halal only because they don’t disclose all the details to the scholars of Islamic law who are approving. Even if, for argument’s sake, they were approved and completely halal, the developments that are being produced are not in line with the sunnah and are not really about creating an Ummatic community; rather, they are copy-and-paste and other luxury property developments. Car-dependent, ticky, tacky homes with some mixed in multifamily, maybe a masjid or musaleh, and a school. They lack any character or real identity. This is likely an attempt at achieving mass appeal among even outsiders. If they were homes, their value to the outside of the community wouldn’t matter. Not to mention, they are extraordinarily unaffordable to those who do not currently own any property and could only ever dream of owning a home.

This path can only lead to failure. They will certainly create liabilities and some assets, but it won’t truly be ummatic. It will fund a large parking lot, some Sunday school activities, maybe a gym for kids to play in, and a community of subdivisions. To really realize a community, we need to create something very different from the American Riba factories, and just attaching a masjid, which we continually need to collect donations for to pay for the lights and water, will not cut it. We need to create a circular economic corridor. Where individual members are united with the mission of creating the environment we so greatly need without riba, toxic food, secular education, and unsustainable design. We need community gardens and farms, green spaces where cars cannot drive, local grocers, and all the essentials with a human-centric design that emphasizes relationships rather than uniformity to preserve resale value.

You may be wondering, How can we create something like that? Well, we begin with what works. The first Muslim cities were designed with the masjid in the center, and everything emanated from it. The noor begins with the masjid, and thus it should be at the center. All the land surrounding it shall be owned by the masjid, and individuals would purchase land or a 99-year lease from the masjid for their use. We then divide the land into homes and community spaces, perhaps a school or other institution or where the people will gather, then an outer ring where food or gardens are, and finally, further out, commerce. With each ring paying rent to the center, The money will flow inward, and the spaces on the outside will benefit the least but bring in the most. Each individual gets a vote on how things will be managed, and each and every transaction is completely public on an open ledger, which allows for transparency. Each member can verify any transaction and hold those responsible accountable.

What I am talking about is creating an environment for cooperation or a cooperative housing development with Islam at the center. No single person owns all the property. A mix of Wakf and private ownership, with everyone an owner based on their contributions to the system. This allows people to contribute in the ways they can, not just with money. Of course, there will still be people who contribute more and some who contribute less, but what you put in, you get out. It can solve the problem of exclusivity by merging it into input equals output—not more money, more land—but it requires us to think differently. Our primary goal in life should be the preservation of Islam for ourselves, our family, and our community. We can only do this by letting our ideas of what it means to live in America go. If we assimilate in every aspect and only slap a masjid near our home, we will always have Islam on the periphery. However, if we create Iman-centric and Insan-centric communities, we will thrive and likely prosper. We will not create mini-Arabia’s or Pakistan's, but we can create communities with Iman. For many like myself who have grown up in America and lived here all our lives, we don’t want car-centric neighborhoods with more parking. We want to surround ourselves with people who understand us and who have the same goals as our own. It can’t only be in spirit; it has to also be in action. We are fighting for these developments; why not fight for ones that are uniquely our own and not marginally our own and allow as many as possible to benefit instead of just those who can put down the cash? This approach can only create empty shells in the long term and good housing values in the short term, but it will only ever create ummah-lite.