Murabaḥah is a term for a sales contract where the buyer and seller agree on the markup (profit) or "cost-plus" price for the item(s) being sold, which covers the cost of what?
Murabaha Murabaḥah, murabaḥa or murâbaḥah (Arabic: مرابحة‎ ‎ , derived from "ribh" Arabic: ربح‎ ‎ , meaning profit) is a term of "fiqh" (Islamic jurisprudence) for a sales contract where the buyer and seller agree on the markup (profit) or "cost-plus" price for the item(s) being sold. In recent decades it has become a term for a very common form of Islamic (i.e. "shariah compliant") financing, where the price is marked-up in exchange for allowing the buyer to defer payment (a contract with deferred payment being known as "bai-muajjal"). "Murabaha" financing is similar to a rent-to-own arrangement in the non-Muslim world, with the intermediary (i.e. the lending bank) retaining ownership of the item being sold until the loan is paid in full. There are also Islamic investment funds and sukuk (Islamic bonds) that use "murabahah" contracts.
Layaway Layaway ("" in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa) is an agreement in which the seller reserves an item for a consumer until the consumer completes all the payments necessary to pay for that item.