How to get rid of riba after repentance?

The Shaykh : ... So what should this man do who has repented to Allah and turned back to Him? Does he take the principal as it appears from the saying of Allah the Exalted: Or is there something else regarding this situation that we see, and we say, and Allah knows best; because this is an opinion, and an opinion is subject to being right or wrong? What we see is that he takes the principal, which is lawful for him, and he takes the riba, but he does not consider it lawful nor does he benefit from a single cent of it; rather, he also spends it on public utilities. The intention behind spending money on public utilities is that a specific person or two specific people do not benefit from this money, but rather it is for public facilities, such as paving a road in a village, or drawing water from a spring, or the like, from which the general public benefits, not specific individuals. We say that we consider this opinion more appropriate than two other opinions in this area. The first opinion we consider to be strict, and the other we consider to be lenient, and the truth lies in the middle between them, as we mentioned earlier. The strict opinion tells you: "You have saved yourself, take your money, and leave the riba for the bank to deal with as they wish." The opinion that opposes this, and they are at opposite extremes, says: "Take it, my brother, and give it in charity to the poor and the needy." There is no doubt that none of these three opinions is based on an explicit text; rather, they are matters of dispute and disagreement, falling under the generality of his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying: This is a place for independent legal reasoning (ijtihad). When we adopt the middle opinion, as we said earlier, we rely on a legal maxim which states that if a Muslim falls between two evils, between two calamities, he chooses the one that is less evil and has less harm, and he does not say, "I am in dire necessity in any case, so I will proceed and apply the forbidden and commit it without any detail." No, let us bring this closer with an example: a man in the desert has two pieces of meat from two animals. One was slaughtered lawfully and its meat is good, and the other is forbidden and its meat is foul and impure. Both are dead, carrion. Is he allowed to eat from this one or that one? We say no; he eats from the carrion whose origin is lawful, and he does not eat from the carrion whose origin is forbidden. You have a dead sheep and you have a dead pig, or rather you have a dead fox. Do not eat from this fox, because its prohibition is greater than that of the dead sheep. This combines two causes of prohibition: an essential cause, which is that it has fangs, and a temporary cause, which is that it is dead. As for the first one, it is forbidden for only one reason. So its prohibition is lighter. Therefore, this person in dire necessity is not given the choice between eating from this one or that one. And now we say, with this maxim, we proceed to what we said earlier: leaving the riba money with the bank is aiding them and giving it to a person who may not deserve it and may not be poor. And if it is necessary to leave it with the bank, we do not look at it and give it to a poor person, of course, if the matter revolves between these two options. But no, we do not leave it with the bank manager or the senior employee in the bank, nor do we give it to a poor person. We distribute the forbidden among a group of people, just as impurity that occurs in a small amount of water is diluted in a large amount of water. And in this way, a person can understand the Shari'ah of Allah (Mighty and Majestic).

The questioner : I mean, is it possible to donate it to build a new mosque?

The Shaykh : Yes, if it is for the Khawarij, there is no harm; but in the mosque, it is not permissible.