@princesst1 You keep saying my understanding is wrong, yet you are unaware of acknowledging that I judge things differently, and you claimed a couple of weird stuff here.
1) Money has no value in itself, which is a concept that came after Islam by a couple of thousand years. Basically, money had no value in itself starting from 1971. Money in the Islamic era was gold, and gold had intrinsic value. The reason why riba was deemed haram is because it's either absuing the borrower in need or keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer by systemic design. It's in fact that when money printing takes place, institutes like Al Azhar are starting to go easy on riba because the current FIAT currencies we have are not the Islamic form of currency
2) Islamic banks are literally charging the same interest compounds using other names, and they keep those expenses as profits for other borrowers of the bank which essentially will still keep the rich richer and the poor poorer. Let's take mortgage as an example..
In Egypt, an Islamic bank will first claim it owns the house, then it sells it to you with a higher price which will be the house price + equivalent interest value the average of any other riba based bank + extra money because Islamic banks are rare. And then sells it to you over some extended period. If you fail to deliver the money, your house ownership will be reverted back to the bank.
A riba based bank in Egypt will lend you the money and charge you interest, then if you fail to deliver your end of the deal, your house will be confiscated, and ownership reverted to the bank.
A Muslim will pay more in case of Islamic banking. However, the same end results exist. So riba banks increased their rates due to the increase in Islamic fees, and it's now a suffocating cycle for Muslims here.
Now we have 3 different train of thoughts about this:
1) Riba is about the concept, not the price the Islamic bank didn't lend you money directly in the contract they bought and sold the house.
2) It's the same thing because the end adverse effect of rich getting richer poor getting poorer effect is at play with even extra steps, because the bank lenders in the islamic banks are actually getting more from that excess money than the normal interest rate. The maqsid (intent) of the Islamic bank and the money borrowers are not the house itself. The borrower went to the bank initially to just get the money, so it's all word play and lip service.
3) Riba, in its current form due to FIAT currency and artificial inflation, is no more prohibited (See dar el ifta of el azhar)
I personally see the 2nd opinion is the more valid because it doesn't matter what contract word salad it is. You still keep the Western capitalistic trickle-down concepts intact and make sure your rich get richer anyway. However, if it's halal to exploit muslims for extra price, I am the first to invest in the islamic finance systems, give me that halal muslim money lol