Transcription
Thank you so much for having me here. Uh, I'm glad, inshallah, to have a discussion with you regarding the frequently asked questions about Islamic finance. Especially for Muslims living here in this society, they face a lot of challenges on how to, uh, preserve their Muslim identity while being financially functional because the whole system actually is a non-Islamic one. So, how to navigate through the system and be financially functional without compromising your principles and your ethics financially, that is the challenge that we face.
The most important goal to be achieved, regardless of all these nuances and tiny details and different modes of finance, is to, uh, you know, fulfill justice and to make sure that there is no financial exploitation in the society because the whole conventional system actually is based on financial exploitation. Someone does have money, and you know, the financier or the wealthy individual is the one who puts all the rules and all the conditions, and the other party is so financially weak, so much so that he or she cannot even negotiate a deal with the financier. Here's what I have for you, you take it or you leave it. So, this actually, uh, creates a lot of financial exploitation. And, uh, subhan Allah, and inshallah, had Allah subhana wa ta'ala answered the question. Okay. As if someone is asking, "Yeah, Allah, why you sent all those prophets and all those messengers and all those like books or scriptures?" He said, subhana wa ta'ala, "We have sent our prophets with clear messages and we supported them with scripture, the scale, which is a symbol of justice." Right? Now, why Allah subhana wa ta'ala has done all that? So people actually would stand for justice, would implement justice. So that's actually the ultimate, ultimate objective is to make sure that there is and there is injustice on earth, justice on all aspects. Justice in that you acknowledge Allah subhana wa ta'ala as your creator. Justice in which is to worship the one who created you, and justice in business transactions to make sure that when you deal with other fellow humans, that you do not take advantage of him, you do not take advantage of his poverty or his desperate need for funds. Okay. Uh, Allah is the one who gave you the money, and the one who gave you the money is definitely able to take that wealth from you. So unless, unless you behave, you behave yourself in a very proper way financially by not taking advantage of other humans, Allah subhana wa ta'ala might deprive you from the blessing and the money that he has given you. So, to keep it simple, all the principles that we, uh, believe in in Islamic finance are to serve one ultimate goal, which is implementing justice and preventing any financial exploitation or when it comes to business transactions between people.
The Quran actually is clear that reeba is prohibited, and there is no definition of reeba in the Quran itself. However, as you know, as a student of knowledge, reeba actually does have more than one category. As you know well, we have that elaboration and just, you know, breaking down to different levels could be navigated in the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the statements of the Sahabah. When it comes to reeba or usury or interest that's mentioned in the Quran, it refers to only one category, only one, which is actually the interest-bearing one, as simple as that. Every single term, any like any single ayah in the Quran that does have the term, it refers actually to the most severe and the most prohibited category of reeba, which is interest-bearing loan. That was called a while ago. People used to lend to one another interest-free loans, believe it or not. And upon, like whenever the loan is due, the lender would approach the borrower by saying, "Listen, the loan is due. You either pay me in full with no consequences, or if you want to have more time, I don't mind at all, but you need to pay me more." So, Allah subhana wa ta'ala revealed the ayah, "O you who believe, be conscious of your Lord and quit whatever is remaining as interest. If you, if you basically, you know, claim to be believers, and if you are not willing to do so, then you are actually waging a war or waiting for a war that will be waged by Allah subhana wa ta'ala." And subhan Allah, this is the only sin in the whole Quran, okay, where Allah subhana wa ta'ala is declaring war against those individuals who are getting involved in this sin. In the whole Quran, you cannot find any sin that's clearly mentioned that if you get involved in this sin, you are waging a war or you are waiting for a war from Allah subhana wa ta'ala, except, you know, being involved in reeba. In the Quran, actually, it is, in very simple words, it is the interest-bearing loan where you go to a bank, you apply for a loan, whether business loan or individual loan or construction loan or student loan, whatever the category might be. Once you are approved for a certain amount of money and you take that money, you are fully responsible for the principal and for the profit on top of it, right? The bank actually is not taking any liability, any risk whatsoever. There is no risk. You are absolutely, by your own, by the law of the land, the bank can go after you and ask for the principal and ask for the interest on top of it without taking any liability. And that's the absolute injustice that we, okay, in Islam, believe that this is something that should not be implemented. I can give others money while sharing the liability and the risk with them. So, if there is a profit, everybody will be enjoying the profit. If there is a loss, we will be just incurring the loss proportionally, at least. See, so in a very technical term, there is a huge difference between the risk-shifting mode of finance as opposed to risk-sharing one. Risk-shifting actually is the traditional one. Again, you like you get some money from the bank, you do whatever you want with the money. At the end of the year, you have to pay the principal and the, you know, the APR, the annual percentage rate, okay, that is determined based on the loan agreement that you have signed. Now, you take that money for business purposes. You make a profit, you break even, you incur loss, you go bankrupt. The bank actually does not care about the outcome result. And that's the injustice that we stand against. If you go with the risk-sharing mode of finance, then you are not borrowing money to start with, right? You take money from the bank based on one of those different Islamic modes of finance. Maybe like the most explicit and simple one is called Mudarabah. Mudarabah means trustee partnership. You take that money from the bank and you start investing on behalf of yourself and on behalf of the bank itself. If there is a profit, you will be taking your share and the bank or the financier will be taking their share. If there is no profit, and it is proven that there is no negligence or mismanagement from your end, then you just pay the principal back to the bank or to the financier. Worst-case scenario, something happened, act of God, as they say. It is again proven that there is no negligence or mismanagement or embezzlement from your end, and you lost the principal that you have taken from the bank. Believe it or not, the bank cannot go after you and ask for the principal. See, that is that is the risk-sharing that we call for actually in the Islamic finance system.
Let me ask something important here. Uh, when we say Islamic finance, okay, we Muslims wholeheartedly believe that the prohibition of interest or reeba is not exclusively indicated in Islam. We wholeheartedly believe that reeba, interest, was prohibited in Judaism, was prohibited in Christianity. Forget about the Torah. Just go to the Quran that you read day and night. Allah subhana wa ta'ala was referring to a certain Jewish community at a certain period of time. He said, subhana wa ta'ala, next ayah, he was referring to a certain Jewish community by saying, of course, Allah is criticizing them here by saying, "They used to deal with interest while they were prohibited from doing so." Again, it's not the Torah, no, this is the Quran that we believe that this is the ultimate truth. So, Allah said clearly that they used to transact and deal with interest while they were prohibited from doing so. Now, Christianity, pick and choose any edition of the Bible that people refer to nowadays and just start reading, you know, reading randomly. You will come across several verses, either by Jesus or by the disciples, where they were explicitly prohibiting their followers from dealing with interest. So, there is a pattern here, there is a lot of consistency. So, reeba was prohibited in Judaism, reeba was prohibited in Christianity, reeba is prohibited in Islam, reeba will continue being prohibited all the way until the Day of Judgment. And you see here the consistency and the coherence, right, between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Based on that, based on that, if you feel more comfortable calling this system that we are discussing, you want to call it Jewish finance system, you are absolutely correct. You want to call it Christian finance system, you are correct. You want to call it Islamic finance system, you are absolutely right. You want to call it divine finance system because actually the source actually is the same, Allah subhana wa ta'ala, and the prohibition actually is proven. So, call it Jewish, call it Christian, call it Islamic, call it Abrahamic, you know, finance system, call it divine finance system, absolutely up to you.
Recently, like in the last few, I would say, you know, decades, yes, there is a trend where some contemporary scholars have a different view that the fiat money, okay, like the bills that you use, the $1, $5, $10, okay, are not the actual money that was referred to in the Quran. I mean, this is the base of their argument. Allah mentioned gold and silver, and they said that the fiat money, right, is not gold, is not silver, it's not backed up by gold or silver. And based on this argument, right, all the rules and the restrictions of reeba are not to be implemented here. I mean, this is a well-established, if you wish, madhhab that, you know, some people embrace and practice nowadays. But this is actually not the mainstream fatwa, this is not the, you know, with all due respect, this is not the correct opinion. Well, it is an opinion, but it's not, it's not correct because nowadays, if you want to purchase gold, right, how can you purchase gold? You're going to use the American dollars that you have in your pocket to pay for it. You see, so whatever people refer to, okay, as a medium of exchange is the currency that the rules of reeba are to be implemented on that currency, whether it is gold or silver or just like paper money, fiat money that is backed up by gold or silver or just fiat money that is not even backed up by gold or silver. It doesn't make any difference. Reeba actually is still, you know, implemented here. Now, the mainstream fatwa is that the rules of reeba are applied here. Okay. You live in a Muslim society, you live in a non-Muslim society, it does not make any difference. And to be more transparent and honest, we do have actually within the Hanafi school of thought an approach that if a Muslim is living outside the Muslim world, then, you know, all these void or invalid transactions between Muslims and non-Muslims would be permitted because the abode is not an abode of Islam, it is something else. Well, this is actually an approach, a well-established madhhab, but again, with all due respect, it's not the most authentic or correct opinion that is supported by, you know, the clear evidences in the Quran and the Sunnah that do not differentiate. Okay? Based on where do you live? So, you live in Saudi Arabia, you live in Pakistan, you live in the United States, it does not make any difference. It's prohibited every time, everywhere.
It's unfortunate to say that the Islamic finance system nowadays has been manipulated big time. We have here like two major schools, if you wish, when it comes to implementing Islamic finance. I call them the rectification school and the justification school. The justification school refers to a group of scholars who are willing to cut and paste from different madhhabs, consolidate the madhhab with the Hanafi, with the Maliki, with the Shafi'i, and any other scholar, putting them together to justify the current situation and to keep everything Sharia compliant. This is the justification school because, you know, the whole capitalistic economic system is based on reeba. Reeba is a built-in component in the system. So, reeba, based on what we have said before, is to lend money without taking any risk. So, those scholars try to justify the current practice, adding some like, you know, small nuances here or there to quote unquote Islamize the contract or to make it Sharia compliant. But in its nature and in its essence, the risk actually is not there. So, even based on this school, even if this contract is called, the way that I look at it, if there is no actual real risk and liability taken by the financier, that is not valid. It is not. We do not care about the names. We care about the essence and reality. And, you know, the maxim here: "What matters in business transactions is the essence and reality, not the wording and the formality." So, the second school is the rectification school, okay, which is a school that, you know, calls for a very fundamental, very genuine change in the structure of finance in a society, okay, where the bank or the mortgage company or the financier actually is genuinely giving money while taking sufficient amount of risk and liability. So much so that if there is a profit, that bank will be entitled for a profit. If there is no profit, the bank will be getting its principal. If there is a loss, the bank actually will be losing proportionally along with the customer who has taken the money. So, remember, justification school, as opposed to rectification school. Now, I belong to the rectification school. Like, I'm more conservative when it comes to passing a fatwa showing the permissibility of contracts.
Back to the maxim here: "What matters in transactions is the essence and the reality, not the wording or the formality." Okay. As an example, someone borrowed money from Bank of America. And when it was time to sign what's called the promissory note, okay, that captures the principal and the interest and the terms and the conditions. Let's say that, just for discussion purposes, that the loan officer was able to manage, instead of giving you a promissory note, he just removed the promissory note and he put a Murabahah contract or a Musharakah contract. Would that make it permissible? The answer is absolutely no, because you are still borrowing money with interest. You are still responsible for the principal and for the interest on top of it, right? This is actually what we mean by that.
Now, implementation-wise, for Muslims living in this society, the whole system, the global capitalist economic and finance system, is dominating almost the whole world, including, of course, the USA. It's really hard for any Islamic finance system to be implemented within a non-Islamic system, right? There is a severe incompatibility between the Islamic finance and the classical or the traditional finance. In the Islamic finance system, you cannot lend money with interest. Simple as that. You cannot lend money with interest. You cannot borrow money with interest. You cannot get involved in facilitating or documenting interest-bearing transactions. As simple as that. In the classical conventional system, the only mode of finance is lending money with interest. So, how can Islamic finance institutes, who are a part of the system, they are not operating independently of the system, no, they are incorporated in the system, right? How can they apply genuine and sound Islamic finance while the whole system actually is non-Islamic one? How can they own a property, taking the risk of owning a property before selling it back, while they are prohibited from doing so according to the law of the land? You see here the incompatibility and the severe difference, okay, between the way that you practice Islamic finance and the way that you practice non-Islamic finance. So, this is actually the dilemma that so-called Islamic mortgage companies in the USA are facing because they are a part of the system. They securitize the contracts, they sell them in the secondary market, namely Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are just classical conventional finance institutes. If they realize that a certain contract, whether it is called Musharakah or Mudarabah or declining partnership, does hold a certain amount of liability and risk, they would say, "No, sorry, we cannot buy this contract. Go back and just fix your contract and make it a straightforward interest-bearing loan." This is actually the, you know, the very confusing issue that most Muslims do not understand, that you cannot apply genuine, authentic, sound Islamic finance, especially when it comes to mortgage, in a non-Islamic finance system. You have to fix the whole system. You have to allow those companies to offer money based on Musharakah. Musharakah means partnership. Musharakah means that the mortgage company has to own the property jointly with the customer, and that ownership actually is a long-term one, 20, 30 years, until the customer pays back or buys the shares of the company. Banks here in the USA, mortgage companies are not, they are prohibited by the law of the land, right? They are prohibited from owning properties except in two cases: offices to operate to use and as offices, or otherwise in case of foreclosure when someone defaults. The bank actually forecloses the property. Otherwise, their job is to lend money with interest and not to make money from real estate, maybe with some few exceptions here or there. So, you see here the genuine problem here. You have to own before you sell to practice Islamic finance. You cannot own because you operate within the mortgage system in the USA. So, you need to do two different things that are contradicting one another, which is logically impossible. You cannot own and not own at the same time.
There is a mainstream fatwa and there is otherwise. Otherwise says that since you live in a non-Muslim society, you are exempted from the prohibition of interest and all these void or invalid based transactions that were prohibited in the Muslim land. They are not prohibited in this society because this is how the system functions and works. Now, this is one opinion, and they are backed up by a Hanafi approach, and we do have some of the Hanbali scholars who do actually support this opinion that rules are not to be implemented outside the Muslim world. Now, the mainstream fatwa that I embrace, along with our council, the Assembly of Muslim Jews of America, is the one that promotes the prohibition of interest every time, everywhere, including in the USA. So, if the question is, can someone mortgage a house in the USA? Well, before we say yes or no, we need to unlock the secret of the mortgage. We need to understand how does the mortgage function here. I'll give you an example. I want to buy a house for half a million dollars, and of course, I do not have cash money to pay for the house. So, there is a sale agreement between me and the landlord. And because I do not have half a million dollars, I apply for a loan through a mortgage company. Upon the approval of my application, the mortgage company would wire the money or pay the money on my behalf to the landlord, half a million dollars, right? And in order for them to secure their fund, if something happened to me, they can just go after me and get their money. They put a lien on the property. So, you end up actually having three different agreements in one, right? There is a sale agreement where I buy from the landlord, and there is a loan agreement where I borrow from the bank, and there is a mortgage agreement where the mortgage company actually puts or mortgages the property. Well, in the Islamic finance system, we do not have any issue with the sale agreement. Okay? We do not have any problem with the agreement. Believe it or not, actually, it is mentioned in the Quran. Rahan is the collateralized or the secured loan. Someone wants to borrow from me, and I do not know that individual. I would ask him to give me a collateral. Give me your watch, give me your phone, give me your car. I'm going to keep it with me as a collateral until you come back and you pay me. That's Rahan. Rahan by itself actually is halal. But when the Rahan actually is combined, is bundled, if you wish, with the loan agreement and with the sale agreement. Sale agreement is halal. Mortgage agreement is halal. The only problem we have here is the loan agreement, right? Loan agreement. When the mortgage company pays half a million in your behalf, you have to pay it back $800,000 within the next 30 years. This is not a problem at all. The problem is that the bank is not taking any liability or risk. Like, just imagine that there is a genuine actual real Islamic finance practice in the society, just for discussion purposes, and the Islamic mortgage company did purchase the property jointly with you, did go through declining partnership with you. And you paid them back $800,000 as a return for the $500,000 that they invested in partnering with you. There's nothing wrong with that. So, the problem is not with those mortgage companies making money. No, the problem is with the way that they make money. If it is a Sharia compliant one, the mortgage company will be taking risk and liability and sharing everything with you throughout the whole 30-year agreement. If it is a conventional one, you are on your own. You take the money. Anything might happen to the property, appreciation, depreciation, eminent domain, natural disaster. For the bank, it does not care about any of the above. By the mortgage code, by the law of the land, they can go after you in court and ask for the principal and ask for the return on top of the principal. So, that's the difference between the two.
I'll give you a real example, right? Let's say that you and I, Amran, want to mortgage our houses. I decided to go with a conventional bank or mortgage company, and you decided to go with an Islamic mortgage company, just for discussion purposes. Let's assume that there is again, a genuine, actual, real, authentic Islamic finance practice, which is not the case in most companies in the USA, but just for discussion purposes. I applied for a half a million dollar loan, you did the same, right? I was approved, you were approved. The total, based on the amortization system, I have to pay $800,000. You have to pay $800,000. Ro, our friend, actually is passing by, right? And would say, "Well, what is the difference? You and Amran went with an Islamic mortgage company. You borrowed, according to him, half a million, and you have to pay it $800,000. Dr. Man borrowed money from a conventional bank, half a million. He has to pay it back $800,000. What is the difference?" That's a very innocent question that is not new, by the way. I mean, this kind of confusion or misunderstanding was raised during the revelation of the Quran itself. Allah actually captured that misunderstanding in the Quran. Some people said that sale agreement is equivalent to loan agreement, while Allah subhana wa ta'ala prohibited loan agreement with interest and permitted the sale one. Let's apply this ayah on our real example. When I took the half a million dollar loan, or the mortgage company with Bank of America or Chase or Wells Fargo, Capital One, whatever, paid that half a million on my behalf to the landlord, I have to pay it $800,000 within the next 30 years. So, when it comes to maintenance and tax and insurance, I'm fully responsible for it. If there is any appreciation or depreciation in the market value of the house, I'm responsible for it. If there is an eminent domain, like the state of Texas took over the property by force and there was no sufficient compensation or fair compensation, I'll be losing the money. If there is a natural disaster like fire or something happened, maybe, you know, whatever, and the house was destroyed or flooded, maybe, right? The bank actually does not care about that. The bank is waiting for $800,000 to be paid within the 30-year period. Now, what happened with you is completely different. You get involved in declining partnership. You were able to pay a 5% down payment, and the Islamic mortgage company actually paid 95% of those $500,000. In the title, in the title, okay, we have to see your name and the name of the Islamic Mortgage Company. So, they own the property jointly with you from day one. In the deed of trust, their name actually is there. So, there is an actual real ownership. Okay, with all that it means for a mortgage company to own a property. Now, based on this model, the client partnership, you will be renting or paying them rent because you own only 5%. You're going to bring your wife and your kids and live in that property exclusively for you. The mortgage company will not be living with you there. So, you pay rent, and you gradually buy the shares of the company. So, you start with 5% equity, 95% mortgage company. After you make the first, and the second, and the third payment, you will jump to 60%, their share will go down to 94, 70%, 93%. Now, if the fair rental value for your house is $2,000, they would ask you to pay $2,500. $2,000 rent, and $500 will go toward the equity. So, you increase your equity or your ownership, your shares. You buy their shares gradually throughout the 30 years of partnership between you and the Islamic mortgage company. Maintenance and tax and insurance, annual expenses to maintain the property will be shared between you and the mortgage company proportionally. If the total money has been spent on the property to keep it running and habitable, usable, livable, let's say $10,000, and you were owning at that particular year 30% of the house, and they own 70%. Well, believe it or not, they have to pay out of pocket $7,000, and you pay only $3,000. Let's say after a few years, when you were owning 50% of the house, you decided to quit. "I'm not interested in this house. I want to move to a different state." You put the house in the market. Say that there was an appreciation of $100,000 extra increase in the market value. You will be actually putting in your own pocket $50,000 profit, and the mortgage company will be taking $50,000. There was a depreciation of $50,000. You will be losing $25,000, and they will be losing $25,000. So, again, if you zoom out, the outcome result is the same. I borrowed half a million, I paid it back $800,000. Your example, you borrowed half a million, you paid it back $800,000. But if you look at the amount of risk and liability and involvement of the mortgage company that happened with you, that makes the huge difference between what happened with me and what happened with you. I went with a risk-shifting mode of finance, while you went with the risk-sharing mode of finance. The ultimate justice was applied in your case. The mortgage company is standing with you from day one all the way until the end of the contract. The ultimate injustice was applied with me. The bank actually gave me the money and they just stepped back, like sitting relaxing, waiting for the $800,000 to be paid within the next 30 years without taking any risk, without taking any liability.
In the conventional one, in the USA here, if it is a foreclosure, like not an optional termination. Optional termination actually is to keep paying and then I told the bank, "Listen, I'm not interested. I'm going to just terminate." That's completely different from foreclosure. Foreclosure means that I refrain, I stopped paying for the last three months. So, there was a kind of default or failure from my end in meeting my financial obligations. Foreclosure means that the bank would repossess the property again and put it in the market. In the USA, in the mortgage system here, if the termination is based on the foreclosure process, then the bank cannot go after you and ask for the remaining balance to be just unfair, right? The bank actually would take, would incur any loss because of your failure, right? So, you paid, you paid 20, 30% of the outstanding balance between principal and interest, and you defaulted, and the property was foreclosed, right? If there was a shortage of $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, the bank actually would incur that because you foreclosed. But meanwhile, you're going to lose all the money that you have paid, right? Whatever you have paid will be just gone. That's it. So, you are out. The house is not yours. The money is lost that you have paid. And in return, in return, if there is any depreciation or the proceeds out of selling that house did not cover everything, they will take care of the rest. If it is a declining partnership, declining partnership, it's going to be kind of different. Like, once you agree with the mortgage company on terminating the agreement, whether you are unable to meet your financial obligations or whatever the reason might be, you change your mind, you just put the house in the market, and whatever proceeds will be divided between you and the mortgage company based on your percentage of ownership. They call it equity. You own 40%, you take 30%, they own 60%, they take 60% of the proceeds. Whether that proceeds is expected or more than the expected or less than the expected, it doesn't make any difference.
Some Muslims mistakenly think that taking interest from others is prohibited while paying interest to others is not as prohibited as taking interest, and they support their argument with the fact that the Quran did not mention the prohibition of paying interest. Quran mentioned the prohibition of taking interest from others. Take for example, "Do not consume, do not devour." So, the ayah is referring to taking from other people. For example, "Quit whatever is remaining." So, do not take, you know, the remaining interest after the prohibition of interest. In this argument, actually, is correct from one side and wrong from the other side. Yes, the Quran did not mention paying interest to others. But the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) indicated clearly that both paying interest and taking interest are both prohibited. Very, very famous hadith that most Muslims know. Allah subhana wa ta'ala is cursing the one who is consuming, taking reeba from others, and the one who is paying reeba from others, and the two witnesses, and even the facilitator or the one who put the parties together and facilitate the reeba transaction. All of them actually are cursed. So, how can we handle this hadith? If the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is putting them in the same level and in the same hadith, they are equivalent in committing the sin because actually reeba does not go one way. In order for someone to take reeba, there must be another party who is paying interest. So, the one who is paying interest is cursed by Allah and his Prophet, and the one who is taking reeba is cursed by Allah and his Prophet. However, the only difference here is that in most cases, there is no way for someone to be compelled or to be in a desperate need or a necessity, if you wish, to take reeba from other people. But it's very, very possible for some people to go through some financial difficulties and hardship. They want to buy food, put on the table, as they say. They want to pay for the rent. They want to pay for medical surgery. They want to pay the tuition fees for their kids, whatever the desperate need might be, and they could not find money. They could not find anyone to lend them money without interest, and they had no choice but to borrow money with interest. Can they borrow money with interest? The answer is absolutely yes. So, the only difference here is that there might be a necessity or desperate need that pushes someone to borrow money with interest. And if that individual actually is in desperate need, then there is no blame, there is no sin upon him. Why? Because necessities permit whatever is prohibited.
The frequently asked questions by Muslims living in this society in the USA is mainly about home mortgage, but they do actually ask about cryptocurrency, between mining and trading in cryptocurrency. They ask about student loans, ask about investing in the stock market in general, retirement accounts in particular, insurance in general, life insurance in particular. All these different hot topics that people ask about day and night. So, at Guidance College, we came up with a Master's program in Islamic Economics and Finance. And the reason behind that is that Islamic finance in the USA is a very promising and very growing industry. Muslims are growing. Muslims are committing more and more to their principles and to their deen. They want to be financially functional without compromising their ethics and their principles. They want to be entrepreneurs. They want to be business people. They want to establish a new business and expand their own business. And the options that they have are very limited. They want to invest in the stock market, options are very limited. So, we came up with this program to support and to have more and more highly qualified Islamic finance practitioners who are able to penetrate the system, come up with Sharia compliant options for Muslims. So, unfortunately, Muslims are in this society are kind of behind. Despite the fact that Islamic finance is growing, but we do not have a sufficient amount of Islamic finance professionals, highly qualified, to catch up with the growth and with the expansion of Islamic finance. So, we supply the Muslim community at Guidance College. We supply the Muslim community with sufficient amount of Islamic finance practitioners. They learn the finance system as it is implemented in the USA, and they learn the Islamic finance system. Those individuals, those graduates will be having very good job opportunities in the different Islamic mortgage companies, Islamic investment companies, in the stock market. They can work in private equity companies. They have a lot of opportunities actually to enhance Islamic finance and to take it from theory to practice. That's exactly what we are aiming here is to not to limit ourselves to only lecturing and giving degrees in Islamic finance. No, we want to see the Muslim community implementing those principles, putting their resources together, establishing independent Islamic finance institutes or Sharia compliant institutes. And those graduates will actually be a very good support for the Muslim community at large to be financially independent and to grow financially without compromising their principles. Private equities, they can definitely work there and help. They can do consultation services for other Muslims, like what I do now on a personal level. I do actually consultation as a side business, alhamdulillah, after this long experience in this field. I've been approached by several entities, they want to structure their business in a Sharia compliant way, so I do consultation for them. And alhamdulillah, I see the result of the effort of Guidance College and some other individuals that Islamic finance, alhamdulillah, is now moving from theory to practice. I can see some entities, new entities, who are established based on Sharia compliant principles. Muslims are putting their financial resources together. They do a mortgage in the most authentic way, away from the secondary market. That's alhamdulillah, like a blessing from Allah subhana wa ta'ala first and foremost, and then because of the effort, because of the increase in the awareness about the importance of Islamic finance and the ability and the capability of the Muslim community to grow in this society here. We know for a fact that mortgage is a highly regulated industry. But the same system itself, if you decide to operate independently, like away from the secondary market, the system itself actually gives you a lot of flexibility. You can do whatever you want. You can apply declining partnership if you are away from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Do whatever you want. Well, can we do that as Muslims? The answer is yes. We have hundreds of millions of dollars scattered all over the country, owned by Muslims. The only thing we need to do is to have a vision, to have a leadership, to put those resources together and to establish an independent Islamic finance institute without actually depending on the secondary market and referring to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Can we do that? The answer is yes. Are we willing to do so? That's actually the challenge that we are facing here. So, whatever we have discussed today is a very, very small portion of whatever we offer as a curriculum in the Islamic finance, in the Master's in Islamic Economics and Finance. So, I would love to see more brothers and sisters joining this program to be equipped with the necessary knowledge and experience on how to handle finance, and in the most Islamic way, right, while working within the US finance system, right? That's exactly what we do. We supply the Muslim community, we supply the American society at large, and the Muslim community in particular, with sufficient amount of Islamic finance practitioners who understand both the Islamic finance system and the classical one. They put them together and they challenge the system in the most positive way to provide more Sharia compliant products, and as I said before, to penetrate the system and come up with products that are acceptable in the Islamic finance system and they comply with the finance system in the USA or the law of the land.