—or even if the repayment period is stretched to twenty years—merely so he can adorn his house with fine stonework, or fit it with arches and balconies and the like. The poor fellow engages in this forbidden extravagance and loads himself with heavy debts.

As for building that follows local custom—meaning, if people are used to a certain style and a person wishes to put up a house in that usual manner, offering his family comfortable space without excess and without borrowing—then there is no harm in that and, in shāʾ Allāh, no sin.