Terms of Service

Effective 2026-10-21 · Version 4.1 of 2026-10-22 (§2, §3, §4, §5, §6, §8 and §16 revised: your waqf is in your own account, in your own name; it works in the marketplace; and the robots invest it only where you grant them access) · Version 4.0 (platform terms version qardon-org-platform-terms-v2-2026-10-21; the condition in §3a is word for word the one of Version 3.0, whose version string qardon-org-platform-terms-v1-2026-10-20 stays with it) · §3b added and §4, §8 and §16 revised per the owner’s ruling of 2026-10-20 that each person chooses the type of his endowment: permanent, or for a set period. The version before this one is kept at /legal/terms-v3.

If anything here differs from the full text below, the full text governs.

إن اختلف شيء هنا عن النص الكامل أدناه، فالنص الكامل هو المعتمد.

1. Who we are

qardon.org is a technology platform owned and operated by Fotoh, Inc., a California for-profit stock corporation, entity B20260321874, incorporated 2026-07-15 in Fresno, California. qardon.org is the record of the waqf: it records who has committed money as a goodly loan to Allah, and it operates the systems that move that money according to your instructions. qardon.org is not a separate nonprofit, not a 501(c)(3), and not seeking to be. The principal you commit is never owned by Fotoh, Inc. or by qardon.org.

2. What qardon.org does

• Records the account you name as your waqf account — your own account, at your own bank, in your own name — and, if you choose to invest, the investment account you open in your own name (§6).
• Records your commitments and balances in our registry.
• Initiates movements between your accounts and to or from other members' accounts, only as authorized by the agreement you sign with us (the Waqf Lender Agreement).
• Receives and reviews applications for a goodly loan — from anyone, member or not — on the facts filed (§10).
• Reports to you on the use and movement of your committed waqf.

3. What qardon.org does not do

• We do not accept gifts to ourselves. We do not solicit charity. The money you commit is a goodly loan to Allah, not transferred to qardon.org. We issue no tax documents and promise no deductibility.
• We do not hold your money. Your waqf bank account is at your own bank, in your own name. If you invest your waqf, the investment account is yours too, in your own name, at the institution you chose; the platform has no account of its own for it.
• We are not a bank. We are not a credit union. We are not a money transmitter.
• We are not a registered investment adviser. We do not give you personal investment advice.
• We do not guarantee returns. Your invested waqf is subject to ordinary market risk.
• We do not provide calamity insurance. The Recovery Fund is calamity aid funded by the yield of the waqf placed through the platform; payouts depend on fund availability, and they are not open yet. The Recovery Fund is not an insurance product.
• We do not provide tax, legal, or financial planning advice. Consult your own professional.

3a. How the platform stays free — a condition of using it

qardon.org is free for you: lenders, borrowers, buyers, sellers and dealers pay the platform nothing. To keep the platform running, its actual running costs, multiplied by a set profit factor, are paid from the yield of the waqf placed through it: never from the principal of any waqf, never added to any price, and never a percentage of a sale. This is a condition of using the platform, not a choice: by opening an account you accept it, and without accepting it an account cannot be opened. If you place a waqf, this condition becomes one of the conditions of your waqf. The platform is not the manager of anyone's waqf: it is the tool in the hands of whoever manages it, or in your own hands if you manage it yourself. Fotoh is not a charity, and it takes no part in your transactions or in the profit of your business.

The order is fixed: the waqf’s investing stream produces yield; the platform’s running cost, times the profit factor, is taken from that yield (we publish these figures so any member can audit them); what remains flows to the Recovery Fund for community calamity aid. The principal is never touched.

Your acceptance is recorded with the date and the version of these words when you open your account.

3b. The type of your endowment — your choice

When you place an endowment, you choose its type. The platform never chooses it for you.

• Permanent. Permanent is the intention you declare when you place it: you place it for Allah, to keep working to help others for as long as it lasts, and it is meant never to be taken back. The platform does not hold you to that intention. If you ever ask for it back, it is released to you promptly and in full, as §4 sets out, and that is between you and Allah.
• For a set period. You state the period, in months. It works to help others for that period, and when the period ends it is returned to you, in full.

Your choice, the period if you chose one, and the date are recorded with your acceptance of these terms, and they are shown on your own records. Only signing up to place an endowment asks this question: applying for an interest-free loan or filing a calamity claim does not.

4. The act you authorize

When you join qardon.org, you sign one comprehensive agreement called the Waqf Lender Agreement. By that agreement, you lend Allah a goodly loan (a qard) in the type you choose when you place it: permanent, or for a set period (§3b). You authorize qardon.org to act as the operator of that goodly loan — moving funds on your instruction and recording the registry, and investing only where you grant the robots access to your own investment account (§6) — without ever taking ownership of your committed principal.

Your account, and what lending changes about it. Your waqf sits in an account at your own bank, in your own name. qardon.org and Fotoh, Inc. never own it, never hold it and can never take it. What changes when you lend is not whose name is on the account — it is what the money is for. If you chose a permanent endowment, you lent it to Allah permanently: there is no term and no end date. If you chose an endowment for a set period, it works for that period, and when the period ends it is returned to you in full. You may add to the account at any time. You do not spend from it and you do not transfer out of it yourself; every movement out of it is initiated by qardon.org's systems, under the rules you set. That is why we show the balance in grey: it is still yours, and it is no longer yours to draw on. And if you nevertheless decide you must have the money back, we do not hold it — the paragraph below governs, and it is released to you promptly and in full, as the end of your covenant and of your membership, not as a withdrawal.

What happens if you ask to retrieve committed waqf. We will first offer you what the community exists to provide — a goodly loan, or a Recovery claim — in case the need that prompted the request can be met without undoing your covenant. If you still wish to proceed, we will state once, plainly and without repetition, what proceeding means: this is money you covenanted to Allah; retrieving it ends that covenant, and it closes your qardon.org account and ends the platform's service to you. If you then confirm, your funds are released to you promptly and in full. No person at qardon.org may refuse, delay, reduce or condition that release. The consequence of retrieval is the end of the covenant and of your membership — never a hold on your money.

5. The money flow

The waqf money never enters any account owned by qardon.org or Fotoh, Inc. The flow is:

• Deposit: you move money from your everyday account into your waqf account, at your own bank, in your own name. You tell qardon.org that it is there, or let it read the balance through the bank link you connected, and the registry records it.
• Lending: when an application for a goodly loan is approved, the money moves from your waqf account to the borrower's account, bank-to-bank, by an instruction you authorized when you signed the Waqf Lender Agreement and under the rules you set. The platform initiates nothing you have not authorized, and the money passes through no account of ours.
• Repayment: when the borrower repays an instalment, the money comes back into your waqf account, bank-to-bank, and the registry updates.
• At work in the marketplace: your waqf may be put to work on the qardon.com marketplace, buying goods at the seller's wholesale price and selling them to a buyer at one price, the same whether he pays cash or over time. The difference between the two is the yield of your waqf (§3a). Your money leaves your account for a purchase only on an instruction you authorized, and it returns to your account as the buyer pays.

At every step the assets are in your name. qardon.org never takes custody.

6. Investing your waqf (optional)

Beyond the marketplace, your waqf may be invested — if you choose — only through an investment account that is yours:

• The account is in your own name, with the institution you choose. The contract for it is between you and that institution. qardon.org is not that institution, is not a party to that contract, and has no investment account of its own.
• Fotoh's robots invest for you only if you grant them access to that account, and only within the halal rules published on this site. Without that access the platform places no trade. You may withdraw the access at any time, and the account carries on as yours, directed by you.
• What is halal to hold is decided under those published rules by whoever manages your waqf — you, or the person you appointed. qardon.org does not maintain a religious-ethics board of its own and does not choose assets for you.
• Nothing is moved out of your investment account by the platform. Whatever yield it earns is yours, under the condition of §3a; the running cost is taken from the yield, never from the principal.
• We are not a registered investment adviser (§3). Granting the robots access is your decision and your responsibility; returns are not guaranteed.

7. How qardon.org is funded

qardon.org is a technology platform within Fotoh, Inc. It must sustain itself to keep running. The funding model is structured to honor a single rule: the goodly loan is lent to Allah whole, and the principal is never touched. It takes 0% on what you lend and 0% on what a borrower receives, and there is no monthly fee to lend — members are not billed for membership, and borrowers are not billed for their loans. Its running cost, times the set profit factor, is paid from the yield (§3a); what remains funds the rest. The platform funds itself as follows, each source transparent.

• No borrower fee of any kind. An approved borrower pays nothing to qardon.org for his loan — no validation fee, no credit-check fee, no origination fee, no per-loan commission. He receives the full amount and repays the principal, and nothing else.
• Cash-purchase discount spread (marketplace). When qardon.org pays cash for an asset on the qardon.com marketplace to fulfill a member purchase, the dealer's pre-committed cash discount is the spread. That spread is recorded as a contribution to the Recovery Fund, not as profit to qardon.org or Fotoh, Inc. Members pay the same listed price they would have paid otherwise; the dealer gives a cash discount, and that discount becomes community calamity aid.
• The platform's cost, from the yield (alameleen alaiha). Described in §3a above. The actual running cost of the platform, multiplied by the set profit factor, is paid from the yield produced by the investing stream of committed waqf, before what remains flows to the Recovery Fund. Never a percentage of the yield, and never from the principal. Published so any member can audit the numbers.

None of these funding sources touches your committed principal. Your principal stays in your name, in your waqf bank account, until the rules of your commitment say otherwise.

There is no percentage of the yield and no fee to any user. The platform's running cost, times the set profit factor (§3a), is taken from the yield, and what remains flows to Recovery. We exist to serve the mission; the funding model exists to let us keep serving.

8. What you can do

• Add to your waqf any time.
• Set purpose restrictions on any waqf you lend (for example, restricted to medical-need members, or restricted to a specific country, within the rules the platform supports).
• Choose the type of each endowment you place: permanent, or for a set period that you state (§3b).
• Grant the robots access to invest your waqf in your own investment account, or withdraw that access, at any time (§6).
• Receive your endowment back in full when its period ends, if you chose an endowment for a set period.
• Stop adding to your waqf at any time. Your committed waqf remains under the rules it was committed under.

9. What you cannot do

• Direct committed waqf to a person outside the recipient classes the platform recognizes. (See §4 for what the account does and does not let you do, and for what happens if you ask for your money back.)
• See the identities of individual people who receive your waqf as a goodly loan. Borrower privacy is absolute. You see category totals and impact summaries; you do not see names, faces, or per-loan identifying detail. (This protects borrower dignity, which is the heart of how the platform is built.)
• Demand a specific investment outcome. Markets do what markets do; we manage to the model but do not promise returns.
• Demand a specific Recovery Fund payout. Payouts depend on fund availability and on the review of the facts filed (§10) — and payouts are not open yet.

10. How an application or a claim is reviewed

Every goodly-loan application, every Recovery Fund claim and every dispute is received, recorded and reviewed against factual questions only: did the event happen, is the documentation legitimate, and is the amount reasonable. Nothing else is weighed — no story is asked for, and what you have lent is never asked and never counted. The decision is given to you in writing, with the reasons for it.

Review is not payment. What is certain today is that a claim is received, recorded and reviewed — and Recovery Fund payouts are not open yet. This site states it when they open; no personal notice is scheduled. Where funds are available a claim may be met in full or in part, never beyond what the community's awqaf have earned. We do not guarantee approval of any application and we do not guarantee any payout.

11. Disclaimers

• The platform is provided "as is." We make no warranties beyond what the law requires.
• Investment returns are not guaranteed. The capital in your waqf investment account is at market risk.
• Recovery Fund payouts are not guaranteed. They depend on fund availability and on the review described in §10, and they are not open yet.
• We do not guarantee approval of any goodly-loan application.
• We do not provide deposit insurance. We are not a bank.
• We do not provide tax, legal, investment, or financial planning advice.

12. Limits on liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the aggregate liability of qardon.org and Fotoh, Inc. arising out of or related to your use of the platform is limited to the fees you have paid us in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages. Your committed waqf principal is not subject to any setoff or seizure by us or any related party; it remains your property, in your name, at your own bank, throughout.

13. Honest disclosure when you ask

Every support agent on this platform is an automated specialist trained on our documented rules. If you ask directly whether you are talking to a human, the agent will answer truthfully and tell you so. If you would prefer a human-priority review at any point, your case can be escalated to a priority-review queue with a stated timeline.

14. Privacy

How we collect, use, and protect your data is described in the Privacy Policy. By using the platform, you agree to the Privacy Policy.

15. Acceptable use

You agree not to: provide false information in any application or claim; attempt to use the platform for money laundering, fraud, or other illegal purposes; circumvent verification or fraud-detection systems; or harass any qardon.org operator, reviewer, or contractor. We may suspend or close an account that breaches this section, while preserving the rules of any waqf already committed under those rules.

16. Termination

You may stop adding to your waqf at any time. Closing your qardon.org account does not, by itself, move your money: committed waqf continues under the covenant you made, in your own account, unless you ask for it back; an endowment for a set period is returned to you when its period ends. If you do ask for it back, §4 governs — the funds are released to you promptly and in full, and the account closure of §4 follows. You may at any time withdraw the access you granted the robots to your investment account; the account stays in your name and you direct it yourself from that point. Closing that account is done with the institution that holds it; its cash is yours, in your own account.

17. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States.

18. Dispute resolution

You and qardon.org agree to resolve disputes by binding individual arbitration administered by a recognized arbitration body in the state of governing law. This is cheaper than court litigation, faster, and does not involve a jury. Each side bears its own attorney's fees. You waive participation in any class action or representative proceeding against qardon.org or Fotoh, Inc. Either side may seek injunctive relief in court to protect intellectual property. Either side may bring an individual small-claims action in lieu of arbitration where small-claims jurisdiction is available.

19. Changes

We may update these Terms. We will give you thirty days' notice by email and by banner in your member dashboard before any material change takes effect. Continued use after the effective date is your acceptance of the changed Terms. If you do not accept the change, you may stop using the platform; committed waqf continues under its commitment rules.

20. Contact

legal@qardon.org