ATTITUDES AND POSSIBILITIES OF APPLICATION OF ISLAMIC METHODS OF BUYING AN APARTMENT/PROPERTY IN NOVI PAZAR AND THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA THROUGH THE SYSTEM OF DIMINISHING PARTNERSHIP (MUSHARAKA MUTANAQISA)

The area of the Balkans, in general (from Turkey to Croatia), caught the "fever" of building construction after the world economic crisis (2008). Especially big cities like Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb, and Podgorica started to get modern residential and business blocks. However, smaller cities such as Novi Pazar in the Sandžak region, in the Republic of Serbia, are also covered by the trend of massive residential construction and transformation from an area characterized by houses to an area with a large number of buildings. The reasons for this in general in the Balkans should be sought in the impossibility or lack of knowledge of capital investment in modern flows (funds, shares, etc.). However, this is not the topic of this paper, because the topic is to investigate attitudes and possibilities of applying Islamically acceptable and ethically correct ways of buying real estate. For this reason, this paper will present the results of a survey on how the citizens of Novi Pazar and the wider area evaluate the need for Islamic ways of buying real estate through the institute of contractual relationship "diminishing partnership" (Musharaka Mutanaqisa). The idea is that through the current legislation, like Bosnia and Herzegovina, citizens of all denominations are offered the Islamically correct concept of buying an apartment with deferred payment, but also to measure attitudes and opinions about the idea of establishing an institute/organization/bank that would offer such products. The goal is to measure the attitudes of the population in Novi Pazar, which is predominantly Islamic, and the attitudes of citizens in the wider area of the Republic of Serbia, which is predominantly Orthodox Christian.