with an additional amount, or by letting me stay in your house or shop, or by giving me such-and-such a gift. Even if no verbal condition is uttered, yet the lender still intends or looks forward to an extra benefit, that is the very increment the Law forbids.

However, if the borrower himself, of his own accord and without any stipulation, offers something extra, there is no harm in the lender’s accepting it. This is counted as repaying the debt in a beautiful manner, for the Prophet ﷺ once borrowed a young camel and returned one that was better and said, “The best of you are those who repay most handsomely.” Such conduct is praiseworthy both customarily and religiously, and it does not fall under the rule “a loan that brings a benefit,” because the added benefit was neither stipulated by the lender nor tacitly agreed upon; it was purely the borrower’s gift.

The same ruling applies if, before the loan ever took place, the borrower customarily used to provide a certain benefit to the lender and continues to do so; since the loan was not the motive for that benefit, it is permissible for the lender to accept it, and the objection is removed.

The borrower must also take great care to repay the loan and return the principal to its owner without procrastination or delay once able to do so, in keeping with Allah’s words: “Is the reward for goodness anything but goodness?” (Quran 55:60).