For many consumer wishes the money simply lacks. However, that does not necessarily mean that one has to give up on that desired car, TV or new kitchen: you just have to finance your desires. Due to the shari'ahs prohibition of receiving or paying interest ("Riba"), Islamic Financing defers considerably from the conventional credits that one normally obtains from a bank. In general, there are two techniques: Murabahah and Ijarah.

Murabahah is a financing technique which contains a profit margin that has been determined in advance. We will clarify this technique at the hand of an example of the financing of a car: a client would like to acquire a specific car of which the acquisition price is Euro 20,000. After the bank has successfully checked the creditworthiness of this client, the latter provides the bank with the characteristics of his desired car, including all options and extras. Then the bank acquires the car for Euro 20,000 and subsequently sells it to the client. In addition to the acquisition price of Euro 20,000, the client pays the bank an agreed additional profit margin of, for example, Euro 1,000 in order to compensate the bank for its expenses of the transaction.

The client repays the total amount to the bank in monthly instalments over a period that has been determined in advance as well, for example 36 months. The client is considered the owner of the car as from the beginning (i.e. moment of acquisition from the bank). A solid credit assessment of the client by the bank is needed for reasons of safety.

Another financing technique is the so called Ijarah, that could be considered as the Shari´ah-compliant type of leasing. The difference compared to the above-described Murabahah is in particular that the bank remains the owner of the car during the period in which the instalments are paid. As such, the monthly instalments that the client has to pay to the bank are in a way comparable to the lease due for the usage of the car. An alternative of the Ijarah is the so-called Ijarah-wa-Iktina. The latter is a kind of hire-purchase agreement where the client automatically receives the ownership of the car at the end of the instalment period. As such, the instalments to are to be calculated in such way that, besides the remuneration for the use of the car (i.e. the lease), they also include the payments for the purchase of the ownership of the car.