Financing a car by necessity ?
Assalamu alaikum
I’m in a very desperate situation. We live in America. My husband and I have a 10 month old baby. I stay home and my husband works full time. We share a car that is over 20 years old and has almost 300k on it. That car’s transmission is going out (the torque converter which is thousands to repair). We only have about $2,000 cash saved to put towards a car.
Our dilemma is
We can’t get a car with only $2,000. If we even could find one, it would be an absolute unreliable piece of junk needing repairs and unsafe for our baby. We would basically be throwing that money away.
The cost to repair our current car may be more than we can even afford and will again be throwing money away on an old car which has other issues.
If we try to sell our car to buy another it could take months which risks the transmission going out and it being worth nothing. More importantly we also will have no transportation for my husband to go to work for as long as it would take to sell the car and find a new one, so that’s not even an option or he won’t be working.
There is absolutely no sharia compliant car finance options in our state. I’ve looked far and wide.
Would this be considered a situation where it’s permissible to take finance a car?
And we are looking at older cars that we would be able to pay off in a timely manner that are very reliable for our situation, not a brand new expensive car.
I’m feeling so anxious and afraid because of the verse that says Allah will wage war on those involved in interest but I genuinely don’t know what to do in this situation. If our transmission fails before we figure this out, we will be left with nothing. My husband won’t even be able to work. We don’t live near any public transportation either. We are struggling financially.
If it were permissible would it be better to go through our bank, or finance directly from a car dealer as far as contracts go?
I’m a revert and so I’m also not very knowledgeable when it comes to the find details hoping someone can please help me.