I’m a lawyer. I read the small print so you can read something nicer.

Islamic finance in the UK has a translation problem. The products are real and regulated, but they’re explained in a mix of Arabic terms and bank marketing, and neither helps much when you’re trying to decide where to put your savings.

My job is reading documents carefully and asking what a word is doing in a sentence. It turns out that’s a useful habit here. “Expected” profit. “Ethical” fund. “Up to” 95% finance. Each of those deserves a second look.

So I started Nuqud: free lessons on ordinary UK personal finance, with an Islamic twist. It’s for anyone in the UK who’d like their money to match their principles and still wants it to work hard. The aim is a life without interest: saving, buying a home, investing, retiring, giving and passing wealth on, all without riba.

How we check things

• Rates are read from each provider’s own pages every morning. If we can only find a rate elsewhere, it’s marked “reported”.
• Islamic contracts are only named when the provider states them in its own documents. Otherwise we say they aren’t stated.
• Rules and figures, such as tax allowances, the nisab or FSCS limits, come from primary sources: GOV.UK, the regulators, the standard setters and the providers. Each guide lists them.
• Calculators show their assumptions, and the inheritance and zakat rules are checked against worked examples.

Our approach to Shariah questions

Where scholars agree, we say so. Where they differ, on pensions, jewellery or long-term debts in zakat for example, we set out the main views fairly and leave the ruling to you and a scholar you trust. Where we work through shares or sums, we name the school or standard we’ve followed. That’s usually the Hanafi school, which many British Muslims follow.

We don’t take money for Shariah opinions, and we don’t give them.

Corrections

If something’s wrong or out of date, email info@nuqud.co.uk or leave a comment on the guide. We’ll fix it, change the “Updated” date, and note significant corrections at the end of the guide.

How Nuqud is paid for

Nuqud is free. Some links to providers may pay us a fee if you open a product, at no cost to you. Partner content and sponsorships are always labelled. None of it changes a rate, a ranking or what we write. We won’t work with interest-based lenders, credit card companies or anything else at odds with the site’s purpose. How we work with partners.

The name

Nuqud (نقود) is Arabic for money. Not wealth, not abundance, not a journey. Money. It felt like the right level of plainness.