01 / 48 · Faith · Benchmark
SONIA in the lease.
The live scholarly fight is not whether rent may be a number. It is whether a rent that tracks a conventional benchmark is still a lease, or a coupon that learned Arabic.
The Mizan desk · 7 September 2026 · 11 min
AAOIFI and the UK boards that follow it have long permitted a rent or profit rate to be set by reference to a conventional benchmark — LIBOR then, SONIA and Bank Rate now — provided the underlying contract is still sale, lease, or partnership. The alternative is a number invented in a room with no market, which prices the book off the world it has to fund in.
The substance critics, loud on X in the sameness charge, say the Direct Debit is the ruling. If it amortises like Halifax, resets like Halifax, and defaults like Halifax, the benchmark is a confession. Fizzyjam’s September 2026 version was the polite one: the conventional mortgage is often slightly cheaper and the schedule looks the same.
Benchmarking is not the sin. Owning nothing is. The critics say those two sentences have become one.
How this desk reads it
We will not pick a mufti. We will say the exam is still the clauses: who owns on day one, what happens if the house is destroyed, whether late payment is a coupon, whether remaining units are a sale. A benchmarked rent that sits on a real share can be a lease. A benchmarked rent that sits on nothing is a loan. The kitchen cannot see the difference. The solicitor can, if you make them look.
A matching Direct Debit is not a matching contract.