Ijaarah

Renting a property to people whose dealings are doubtful

Q: My father in law owns a building, all the portions being given on rent. Though the land belongs to my husband but he is not given any amount nor has he ever demanded as he is having a good job and my father in law's only source of income is the rent from the building.

The rented places are.... A bank, an MRI CT scan service, a gym, a gents salon, a female beauty parlor, a tobacco shop, and an estate agency.

1. I want to know if the income in the form of renting to these places is permissible?

2. When we stay at our in laws, can we eat the food bought with the same money?

3. If one qurbaani share in a cow is purchased with the abovementioned income, will it have an effect on the other shares of qurbaani?

Donating the proportionate amount that was received from haraam income

Q: I had a job in a large clothing store. My job was a mixture of cleaning floors, folding and hanging clothes, moving boxes around containing clothes, working on the cash registers and so on.

The problem is that a few of the items contained haram imagery, like cartoons, which were somewhat like Greek mythology and such very haraam stuff, nike is a famous similar example. And part of the job required me to work with these items here and there. I tried to avoid them as much as possible, I wanted to quit but I had a lot of difficulty finding a job as I'm a student.

Also I didn't know for a long time if this company was going to be selling these kinds of items. So I have repented and I think I should donate the money I earned from the haraam items which was very little to begin with as most sales were from plain products.

Also, due to covid-19, I lost that job and because I was paying taxes, I now receive government assistance, which I'm depending on to get me through possibly more than an entire year and even more perhaps as I am a poor student. I have some savings from the job and mostly from government assistance. Total sales from these haraam items were probably much less than 2% or even 1% and even much less were actually paid to me. But should I donate from my job savings only or from job savings and also the government assistance? How much should I donate and where should I give my donation?

Charging a cancellation fee

Q: I booked accommodation with a certain guesthouse for the March school break holidays which was originally from the 20th March until the 30th March for a total of 10 nights and payed a sum of R8500.

On the 15th March the President announced that we are facing a pandemic and was putting social distancing restrictions in place as well as non essential travel was to be cancelled. The next day I contacted the guesthouse to cancel my accommodation due to the presidents speech the night before. While negotiating the penalty for cancelation, the beaches were then also closed.

After much deliberation I was penalised 4 nights (40%) of my 10 night paid accommodation without a cash refund however a 6 nights credit for future stay. About 10 days later I was contacted for a refund to be processed. The amount refunded was 60% of what I paid (R5100) resulting in a 40% penalty as per above.

My question is, is it Islamically permissible for this penalty as this cancellation was due to the pandemic as declared by our President.