How everything works

How qardon.org pays for what it needs to run.

qardon.org keeps records — it records what every member has lent, and it moves money only when the member himself tells it to. It does not hold your money, it does not own it, and it never takes a part of it. Your money stays in your own account, in your own name:

• 0% of what you lend. All that you lend goes in. Nothing is taken off the top.
• 0% of what a borrower receives. An approved borrower gets the full amount — nothing in between that could look like interest — and pays qardon.org no fee at all for the loan: no checking fee, no credit-check fee, no fee to set up the loan, and no commission on the loan.
• No monthly fee to lend. Members never pay a subscription to lend.

How the platform's costs are paid. No one pays to use the platform. Its real running costs, multiplied by a fixed number that gives a set profit, are paid from the profit the waqf earns — never from anyone's waqf money itself, never from a borrower, never added to a price, and never a percentage of a sale. Every member agrees to this as a condition when he signs up (Terms, §3a). What is left of the profit serves the community — helping people recover from disaster, helping members stand on their own feet with money, and caring for elders — and the lender keeps nothing from it.

Nothing is invested yet. When it is, the waqf will work through the marketplace — and each member's account stays in his own name.

When a member's waqf is put to work, it stays in an account in his own name. It works the way the founder ruled — through the marketplace, not by trading shares:

• One price. A family buys an item at the seller's one price — the same whether it is paid now or over time — at 0%, with no interest and no late fees.
• Wholesale. The waqf pays the seller a wholesale price, lower than that one price. The difference is the waqf's profit. Nothing is earned for time, and no rate is given.
• Not yet. No deal has been paid for and no money has moved. The chances that are open are only written down.

The profit is always used in the same order: first it keeps the waqf whole, then it helps people hit by disaster, then it grows the fund. The platform's running costs, multiplied by a fixed number that gives a set profit, are paid from it (Terms, §3a). The profit is kept in your own account. It is set aside for the requests of people hit by disaster, and it is not yours to take out — it was given away from the moment your waqf earned it.

Karam: the elder keeps the home.

Karam is not a loan against an elder's home. Normally the elder keeps the home, and its ownership never changes hands; the home is recorded as the elder's own waqf while he lives in it. Or, if the elder freely chooses, the home is sold to a young family who pays for it over time at 0% — with no interest — into an account in the elder's own name, and that money pays for his care. Nothing is held as a guarantee, and nothing is sold off. Karam is not open yet.

What Fotoh offers the community for free.

qardon.org keeps the records that make lending with no interest work — it never holds the money, and it has no fund of its own. Beyond the records, Fotoh, Inc. — the company behind qardon.org — pays for the programs the community needs and offers them for free to the places and people who serve the community. For example:

• MMS — a full system to run a community centre (money, events, list of members). Free to use. It is never taken away, made worse, slowed down, stamped with our mark, or locked behind payment. The centre's information belongs to the centre.
• Live Athan — a free app to hear the call to prayer and pray on time. Always free, never for profit.
• Lending box for partners — a small lending box any community centre can put on its own website. No fee.

All of this is paid for by Fotoh, Inc. from the products it sells for profit — the marketplace, the store, and more. qardon.org itself takes nothing from anyone's waqf money itself — only its running costs, multiplied by a fixed number that gives a set profit, from the profit the waqf earns.

Where Recovery help comes from.

Recovery help is paid from the profit the community's waqf earns — never from the waqf money itself, which is never spent. Recovery is help when disaster hits. It is not a loan, and it is never paid back. There are no monthly charges, no middlemen, no pricing of risk of any kind, no small print that leaves you out, and no loss assessors — and payments have not started yet.

When anyone asks for Recovery help — member or not — the request is received and saved, and we look at the facts: did it happen, are the papers real, is the amount reasonable. We cannot promise a date for a decision, and we do not send personal messages; this website will say so when payments start. When they do, an approved request is paid in full or in part, depending on what the waqf has earned.

Who makes the rules — and what we do not claim.

Qardon.org is a computer platform run by Fotoh, Inc. Its founder decides every rule of the records. Each ruling, with the Islamic law reasons behind it (including the standards of the OIC and AAOIFI, two international Islamic bodies, where they apply), is written into our plans and published here. Fotoh holds none of the members' money — every number on this page comes straight from the records. No board has been formed and no audit has been done yet. When an independent check exists, we will say so here — not before.

Qardon.org is kept fully apart from the accounts of any community centre. Money never sits with a partner centre. Partner centres help us reach members, but they do not hold money for us.