BTV: Lack of Sharia Compliant Financial Aid Leaves Many Muslim Students Frustrated

Ask any grad student how they are paying for tuition, and most of them will tell you they have some type of student loan. While this is not a problem for most students, it’s one of the biggest struggles some Muslim students face in their lifetime.

Islam, like all other Abrahamic religions, forbids engaging in interest bearing transactions, regardless of rate.

“It’s the biggest sin you can commit behind shirk (associating partners with God) and a few others, and for the mass majority of Muslims in America it’s the only way to get an education, I would call that a pretty big problem,” says Arsalan Siddiqui, a 23-year-old med student at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

When it comes to funding their education, many Muslim students just bite the bullet and take interest bearing loans, some change their field of education to something that is less expensive, and others defer enrollment and work to save up money for their tuition. Unfortunately, the latter group rarely pulls through enough money to cover the expenses of more lucrative graduate degrees such as law and medicine, since tuition in those fields is close to upwards of $100,000 and getting higher every year, if not every semester.

“To be honest I think it is everyone’s responsibility, the responsibility of both those who need the money and those who have the means to lend the money. As with every problem in the Ummah (global Muslim community) I think it’s everyone’s [every Muslim’s] responsibility to think about it and do something about it,” says 28 year old Shanila Faghfoor, currently working at a pharmaceutical company and planning to pursue a master’s in public health. “I do think it’s going to be complicated and will take effort and hard work, but at the same time I do think it is possible to be accomplished. The need is certainly there, we just need to put our brains together and come up with some concrete solutions.”

Dr. Ahmad Sakr, president of the Foundation for Islamic Knowledge and director of the Islamic Education Center in Walnut, California, has a different view on the issue.

“In Islam the Calipha (Islamic state) government is legally obliged to educate everybody free of charge, however, since we do not live under such a government the only alternative for some students is grants and loans but unfortunately over 95% of our students have to take loans.”

This is a minority opinion which Dr. Sakr says stems from “Ad daruraat- to be al mahzoorat” which loosely translates to “necessities make things halal (permissible) for anything prohibited.”

Many Muslim scholars disagree with this opinion and state that taking such loans should be avoided as much as possible, if not avoided completely. Dr. Sakr emphasizes that there is a difference between interest and riba (usury), “riba is exploitation. Interest at 5% or 10% that is not usury that is interest, interest is where you benefit, riba is usury and exploitation and that is important to remember the difference.” Other scholars argue that there is no difference between the two.

For those students who try to adhere strictly to their faith, there are currently little to no options.

“As far as viable solutions go,” says Faghfoor, “the easiest would be to ask Muslim’s in your community who can give you a loan, but that’s where the hurdle is, there needs to be a system where that can be done without complications, or even better, help from the schools.”

Siddiqui agrees that the road to a solution is difficult, but not impossible, “the true spirit of Islamic banking is in equity, so with the cooperation of Islamic banks they could invest in students just like people invest in real estate, and you can set up a system of reliability, almost like a credit score based off of an equation made with a student’s grades and success rate. It’s all doable.”

Siddiqui also believes that if Muslim students start approaching their school’s administration, they can begin finding solutions for themselves. “I joined my schools financial aid advisory board to let my issues be heard. Schools need to be made aware of what their students are going through.”

If school’s financial aid departments start giving alternatives to the way Muslim students can pay their tuition, the problem is as good as solved.

“The school could allow the student to defer payment and just pay a much higher amount later on and, that way the school doesn’t lose any money and that’s not riba (usury) because it is an agreed payment, it’s not a fee or a penalty,” he says. “You just give people two different payment options on their application and one is more expensive, Muslim students can opt for that and that’s a choice they are making, it would be compliant with our religious requirements.”

“The conversation for this should have started a long time ago,” says Faghfoor, “it’s not that hard to have a halal loan system if everyone has the right mindset and when that’s the only thing keeping you from what your education, that gives you a helpless frustration.”

Siddiqui emphatically agrees, “We [Muslim’s] have been here for at least 3 to 4 decades, there is no shortage of Muslims in higher education. Muslims have gone through med school and law school in every generation, we have doctors, engineers and lawyers from every generation, almost all of us have some type of college education, and we’ve all faced it. You either chose to ignore this problem or found your own temporary solutions and did not care about the guy coming after you. If a single person over the last 3 or 4 decades had given a damn about this, I would not be going through this myself right now.”

For those Muslim students who care about this aspect of their education, this is a very frustrating situation to be in. A viable solution is not very difficult to attain, it just requires time, dedication, and concern from the community. The lack of a solution can be directly attributed to the lack of care and concern in the local Muslim American community.

Faghfoor agrees, “What it will take from our generation will be to let go of our cultural baggage and our egos and do this for ourselves, for Allah and for our future generations, hopefully they won’t even have to think about taking a loan that’s not halal.”