Q. Having spent several years working here in Saudi Arabia, I am now returning home where I have been offered a job as an investment broker. I would like to ask whether this type of job is permissible to do in Islam. It involves talking to people and arranging their investment in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, etc. This type of work will give a commission in addition to one’s salary.
Z. Youssef, Dammam
A. To start with, everything is permissible unless it is pronounced otherwise, or it involves something forbidden. Thus, to work in investment is permissible to start with, unless it involves some forbidden activities.
What is feared in the first place is that one becomes deeply involved in trying to persuade clients to take some investments, concealing in the process some of the facts that he would otherwise have revealed. He does so in order to secure their order, so that he gets his commission. In this way, he is less than honest with his clients. If this becomes a habit, then his work becomes unacceptable.
It is important to realize that it is the additional factor of dishonesty that made the work unacceptable from the Islamic point of view. This is the same as the case of a milkman who dilutes his milk with water, and then sells it assuring his clients that it is pure. Here we have a case of perfectly lawful job, which is selling milk, becoming forbidden because the seller has introduced into it an element of dishonesty.
The other thing that one must guard against is that some of the businesses in which he persuades his clients to invest may be involved in some forbidden practices, such as brewing or selling wines, offering usurious transactions, etc. Helping or promoting such businesses is not permissible. In connection with alcoholic drinks, they are forbidden not only to consume, but also to make, buy, sell, give as a gift and serve. With regard to usury, the Prophet is quoted to have said: “God rejects the person who devours usury, the one who pays it, the person who writes the contract between them and the witnesses to the contract.”
The reader is more aware of what his work will involve. He is thus in a better position to judge about its permissibility, in the light of what Islam allows and what it forbids.
Pilgrimage for deceased Parent
Q.1. Is it permissible for me to perform the pilgrimage on behalf of my father who died 30 years ago?
Q.2. Is it right or wrong to use the cloth we used in consecration, or ihraam, as wrappings before burial when one dies?
M. Basim, Jeddah
A.1. It is certainly an act of real dutifulness to offer the pilgrimage on behalf of your deceased father. Since he did not offer the pilgrimage in his own lifetime, that duty would be redeemed, and he would no longer be accountable for its omission. The only condition is that you should have performed the pilgrimage on your own behalf first. The pilgrimage is a duty we owe to God and should be treated as a debt which we settle when we offer it. Thus its repayment on behalf of one’s parents is in the same way as repaying their unpaid debts. Thus when you offer the pilgrimage on behalf of your father, you settle his outstanding debt. If he had offered the pilgrimage himself, your offering it on his behalf counts as a voluntary pilgrimage for which you earn him great reward. Moreover, in either case, you earn rich reward from God for this dutiful action.
A.2. If one retains his ihraam garments in order to be wrapped in them when he dies, this is an innovation, or bid’at, and it is wrong. It is as if one is taking with him a proof that he offered the pilgrimage, as if God does not know who has done this or that particular duty. Besides, being wrapped in such garments does not absolve him of any subsequent sin he may have committed, unless it be a very simple offense which God forgives anyway. Much better than such wrapping is to turn to God in repentance and request Him to forgive us. Having said that, I should add that if being wrapped by the ihraam garments occurs naturally, without any deliberate suggestion that it should be the case, then that is appropriate.
Zakah on savings for house purchase
Q. I have been saving money for the last several years in order to buy a house in Canada, my home country. I have been paying zakah every year on my savings. As this process will take me several more years, and in the light of the fact that Islam considers having a house for oneself and one’s family is a necessity, would it be permissible if one treats such savings for this purpose as exempt from zakah? I should add that I prefer not to have a mortgage, which I could do now to buy the house. If I arrange a mortgage, I would be using my savings and would no longer pay zakah on them. Please advise.
Abu Ferris, Riyadh
A. If you continue to hold cash savings, they remain liable to zakah every year, even though they are earmarked for a definite purpose. To start with, such savings are ready money which can be used for any purpose at any time. Although you plan to use them for buying a house, there is nothing to stop you using them for buying a car or organizing a business, etc. But this is not the main point. Since your savings are liquid money, they are liable to zakah. Nothing can be argued about that.
Once you use such money for any purpose, the situation becomes different and it should be looked at in the light of the new circumstances. Thus, if you decide to invest your money in a manufacturing business, and you use the money to buy the machinery needed, or the land where you will have your business, or the vehicles to transport your products to your clients or distribution outlets, then that money becomes exempt from zakah.
Islam does not like savings to be kept idle, even though they may be earmarked for a definite purpose. The Prophet advised against that saying that money should not be left idle, lest it should be “eaten up by zakah.” What he meant was that if money is saved, without investment, then paying zakah for it year after year would be certain to make it disappear. While the rate of zakah, at 2.5 percent a year, would not literally eat up any savings, the Prophet was actually referring to its progressive decrease in quantity and value. Hence, it is important to keep money growing by investing it.
Buying a house for one’s family is a very important thing. It satisfies one of the essential needs recognized by Islam. The sooner one is able to own a family home the better. Yet saving the whole amount to buy a flat or a house before the actual purchase may be very difficult. People try to overcome the problem by borrowing a part of the price.
In Muslim society, it used to be the case that people were able to raise what they need through private loans without repaying any thing more than the capital. That has become more and more difficult with the change that has overcome society in most Muslim countries.
In the West, people resort to having a mortgage. When Muslims living in the West faced this problem, they referred to scholars in the Muslim world, who frequently were unable to give a straightforward ruling because they were not familiar with the system.
Scholars who have studied the question closely have been able to give a ruling that it is permissible to take out a mortgage to facilitate the purchase of a house. That is a loan which gives both the borrower and the lender a real benefit. Moreover, the benefit to the borrower is immediate, right from the moment the money is advanced and the purchase is made.
He owns the house and gets all the profit made on any resale at any time. Indeed the benefit to the borrower is far greater than that of the lender.