Guides
Twelve essays, one spine.
Start with riba. Then banking, the house, and the screen. Scholar-split topics stay labelled as split — including UK student finance.
What riba actually is
Riba is not a vibe and it is not ‘any profit’. It is a stipulated increase on a loan, or an unequal delayed exchange of certain commodities. Everything else in this guide hangs off that line.
8 min · Foundations
Accounts, savings, and the high street
A current account is a tool. A savings rate is a coupon. Islamic banks in the UK mostly use wakala, murabaha, or wadiah — and you should know which one you actually hold.
7 min · Banking
Buying a house without a mortgage
UK “Islamic mortgages” are usually diminishing musharakah or ijara, not a rebranded loan. They cost more, they are still regulated, and the late-payment clause is where a lot of products quietly fail.
9 min · Home
Halal investing without the brochure
A share is a slice of a real business. The screen is two doors: what the company does, then how it is financed. Pass both, purify the rest, and ignore anyone who says “just buy the Islamic ETF” without opening the factsheet.
8 min · Investing
Zakat on a modern balance sheet
2.5% of zakatable wealth above nisab, after a lunar year. The fights are about gold versus silver nisab, jewellery, pensions, and shares you mean to hold.
8 min · Zakat
Cards, BNPL, and living without overdrafts
The contract on a credit card is a riba contract even if you repay in full. That sentence is why this topic is split, and why debit, charge cards, and cash-flow discipline do more work than another 0% balance transfer.
6 min · Debt
Workplace pensions, ISAs, and auto-enrolment
You are probably invested in banks and alcohol through a default fund you never opened. Switching is usually one form. Purification still matters.
7 min · UK
UK student finance, without slogans
Plan 2 and Plan 5 are not classical bank loans. They are also not “free”. UK scholars have published opposite conclusions. Here is the structure, then both readings.
8 min · UK
Takaful, and the insurance you must buy anyway
Conventional insurance sells you a gharar contract. Takaful is mutual donation plus agency. The UK barely has a retail takaful market, and car insurance is still a legal duty.
6 min · Risk
Crypto, staking, and digital gharar
Bitcoin as digital property is a live debate. Lending coins for a yield is not. If the product is a savings rate in a hoodie, it is a savings rate.
6 min · Investing
Purifying mixed income
When a company you screened still earns a slice of interest, you give that slice away. It is not zakat. You do not get to count it twice.
5 min · Practice
Trading, partnerships, and not becoming a bank
Mudaraba and musharakah are how Islamic finance is supposed to feel. Invoice lending, “merchant cash advances”, and Stripe-style residual loans are how it usually goes wrong.
7 min · Business