Guidance Residential
| Type | Subsidiary of Guidance Financial Group |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2002 |
| Headquarters | Reston, Virginia, USA |
| Key people |
Khaled Elsayed, CEO Hussam Qutub, VP of Marketing [1] |
| Website |
Guidance Residential is the largest U.S. provider of Sharia-compliant or Islamic home financing to American homeowners. Since the launch of its operations in 2002, Guidance Residential has provided more than $2.8 billion in riba-free (free of interest or usury) housing finance contracts.[2] Guidance Residential is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guidance Financial Group, which is a subsidiary of the parent company, Capital Guidance.[3] Guidance Residential uses a financing model called the Declining Balance Co-Ownership Program or diminishing musharaka or partnership, which makes it unique from other Islamic financing companies .[4] In other words, the relationship between Guidance and its customer is that of co-owners in a property and not one of lender-borrower.
History
Guidance Residential was founded as a subsidiary company to Guidance Financial Group in 2001. Guidance Financial Group, led by its founder Dr. Mohamad Hammour, worked for three years to develop its Declining Balance Co-ownership Program. Once the program was developed, Guidance Residential found a national investor in Freddie Mac. The relationship proved to be a success with Freddie Mac having provided the majority of Guidance’s funding to date. As a result, Guidance Residential to-date only provides Freddie Mac conforming financing terms.
Since 2001, Guidance Residential's Sharia Supervisory Board, made up of Islamic finance scholars, meet regularly with Guidance management to review compliance with Sharia principles. They also monitor all financial products and services managed or advised by Guidance to assure their continued compliance with Sharia ethical practices.
Over the course of the last 10 years, Guidance Residential has become the largest U.S. provider of Sharia-compliant or Islamic home financing to American homeowners.[citation needed] This constitutes having served just over 72% of the active market for Sharia-compliant home financing. Guidance has also become one of the leading corporate sponsors of events hosted by American Muslim organizations.
Sharia Board
As an independent body, the Sharia Supervisory Board of Guidance Residential includes Sharia scholars who are among the world’s leading experts in the Islamic law of financial transactions. All are internationally recognized authorities serving on the Sharia boards of many of the world’s leading Islamic banks and financial institutions.[5]
- Chairman: Mufti Taqi Usmani(Pakistan)
- Member: Dr. Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah (Syria)
- Member: Shaykh Nizam Yaquby (Bahrain)
- Member: Dr. Mohamed Elgari (Saudi Arabia)
- Member: Shaykh Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo (USA)
- Member: Dr. Mohamad Daud Bakar (Malaysia)
- Member: Dr. Muhammad Imran Usmani (Pakistan)
References
Further reading
- Closing on a Dream (New York Times)
- A Higher Law for Lending (The Washington Post)
- When Hedge Funds Meet Islamic Finance (The Wall Street Journal)
- Firms Offer Muslims Alternatives To Mortgages (NPR)
- Islamic Financing (PBS)
- Halal Mortgages: Alleged Misuse of Taqi Usmani’s Fatwa and 3 Important Questions (Muslim Matters)