Salam Alaykum shaykh. I have a friend who have accepted Islam not long ago. He asks if it is allowed for him that his father who is not a Muslim, buys a house With a loan based on ribaa (usury/interest). And then my friend will buy the house from his father by monthly installment, without ribaa (usury/interest)?

We are three sons, three daughters and a mother. We inherited 14,500 Jordanian dinars from our father and we invested this money in some business; every month we get 215 Jordanian dinars. Is any zakaah due on this amount, because this money belongs to everyone?.

I embraced Islam -praise be to Allah- and now I want to keep myself chaste, but my parents think that the most suitable age of marriage is not until twenty-five or preferably twenty-eight. Even worse than that, one of them thinks that there is nothing wrong with friendship and relationships outside of marriage - Allah forbid. The matter is extremely difficult and I do not know how to talk to them about this matter. I want to keep myself chaste; I want to marry a man who will help me to adhere to my religion, a man who will stand beside me and help me, a man who will live with me, because I am living far away from my parents. They are divorced and each one lives in a different city. I do not know how to explain these details to them in order to convince them that I should get married early; rather they think that getting married at an early age is something that is not appropriate. I am the only daughter of my parents, hence I do not want to disobey them and I do not want to upset them; I do not want them to forsake me either. I want at least to do the marriage contract, then delay consummation until Allah wills.

My questions are:

1. Is it permissible for me to do the marriage contract but delay marriage and the waleemah (wedding feast) and consummation for five years, for example?

2.  Do I have to repeat the marriage contract in front of my family later on and pretend that I was not married? Or is that regarded as coming under the heading of lying? I hope you can advise me because I do not know what to do.
 

How does participating in Hajj affect the life of a Muslim?

I am from a Muslim background, but I never used to offer the obligatory prayers and even when I tried to pray once, I did not do it right. In other words I did not prepare to do it in the proper manner. I ask Allah to forgive me. I heard that the one who does not pray is a disbeliever and is not a Muslim, but whoever offers the five daily prayers, or one or two of them and omits the rest, is regarded as a Muslim. Also, I did not pay zakah on my wealth, but for at least two years I have completed the fast of Ramadan, and I intend to continue doing so. I want to learn how to pray and make it part of my life, along with other acts of worship. 

Is it obligatory for me to pay zakah for all these many years (when I did not pay it), and to make up the days that I did not fast at the time when I was not praying? 

Please note that I have now reached the age of thirty-one years; perhaps you will understand that this may cause me a great deal of hardship; to ward off that hardship, can I start over? Will Allah forgive me if I do that?

Sometimes we hear opinions that were narrated from the Sahaabah, or sometimes other opinions that were narrated from the imams (leading scholars) on various occasions, although the basic principle directs us to follow the Qur'an and Sunnah. When does the Muslim have to follow the opinion of the Sahaabi or imam? How can we reconcile between this and the obligation of following the Qur'an and Sunnah?

How can we prove to non-Muslims that Islam is a tolerant and easy religion?