A Christchurch man is struggling to get on the housing ladder because New Zealand’s banks don’t offer sharia-compliant loans.
Hisham El Zeiny has lived in New Zealand for 21 years but is unable to buy his own home, partly because paying or receiving interest is forbidden in Islam and the country’s banks don’t offer alternative finance options.
The 66-year-old, a former imam of the El Noor Mosque who now works as a cooking and Arabic tutor, said Muslims view the process of making money through lending as “usury”. Read more