A perfect example of why I think religion is so silly

[TTChamp]

I stumbled on this while reading up on mortgages.

Source here is Wikipedia, but I have no reason to doubt it is true.

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Islamic mortgages
The Sharia law of Islam prohibits the payment or receipt of interest, which means that practising Muslims cannot use conventional mortgages. However, real estate is far too expensive for most people to buy outright using cash: Islamic mortgages solve this problem by having the property change hands twice. In one variation, the bank will buy the house outright and then act as a landlord. The homebuyer, in addition to paying rent, will pay a contribution towards the purchase of the property. When the last payment is made, the property changes hands.

Typically, this may lead to a higher final price for the buyers. This is because in some countries (such as the United Kingdom and India) there is a Stamp Duty which is a tax charged by the government on a change of ownership. Because ownership changes twice in an Islamic mortgage, a stamp tax is charged twice.

An alternative scheme involves the bank reselling the property according to an installment plan, at a price higher than the original price.

All of these methods are still compensating the lender as if they were charging interest, but the loans are structured in a way that in name they are not.



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link

Would changing the wording on a legal document really make god/alla/whoever happy? What a joke.