Access to Own Dwelling through Ijarah at Islamic Banks and State-Owned Housing Scheme in Pakistan

Purpose: Access to a safe dwelling is one of the necessities of life and an indicator to reveal the economic development of a country. In Pakistan, however, the majority of the people do not have their dwelling rather have to spend their life in renting homes or in slums. To overcome the housing shortfall, the State Bank of Pakistan has pronounced a low-cost housing scheme for the poor and the low-income segment of the society while the Islamic banking sector also offers ijarah facility to purchase or to construct own dwelling and claims to work in the objective of Islamic legal system. Therefore, this study aims to analyze critically,  ijarah and state-owned low-cost housing scheme from the public insight. Design/Methodology/Approach: This research aims to utilize analytical, theoretical, and empirical methods of research rather than some combination thereof by utilizing experimental reasoning based on naturally occurring data, reports, and surveys. To evaluate ijarah and government housing scheme from public insight, a survey of 100 salaried persons has been conducted by way of the questionnaire at different companies in  District Rawalpindi. Findings: This study found that Pakistan is suffering from the acute issue of lack of own dwelling. The result of the conducted survey reveals that the majority of the employed people showed more trust in the state-owned housing scheme than ijarah at Islamic banks. Those people showed their interest in the state-owned housing scheme than ijarah at Islamic banks. Implications/Originality/Value:  The practical approach to ijarah at Islamic bank found in trust deficit concerning the public insight. That ijarah does not provide low-cost homes to the homeless people, hence not serving by Shari’ah. The current policy of the state provides an opportunity to ijarah to facilitate poor people by softening its terms and conditions and by way of qard-e-hasanah.