Medical Aid

Q: I have know that taking out a medical aid policy is impermissible. However, will a person who has a chronic illness and is always in and out of hospital be able to take out a medical aid policy due to the lack proper health care in the state hospitals? Similarly, i know of a hear patient who is supposed to be getting medication from the state, but due to the poor conditions at hospitals, at times he either gets his medication late or not at all. Will he be able to take out a medical aid policy in order to get his medication from a pharmacy due to the exorbitant costs of the medication?

Refund in foreign currency

Q: My supplier is refunding me my payment from malaysia after 3 years. I transferred 33510 us/dollars 3 years ago. I transferred around R260 000, which was 33510us/d. He is transferring bak to me 35000us/d [a little extra] but conversion to rands will be around R240 000. Does he have to transfer exact dollars bak or how does it work because i may leave us/dollars in account until i get a better rand rate? Please let me know the correct way.

Accepting the invitation of the debtor

Q: I have a friend, who borrowed some money from me a while back. He sits in a grocery shop, owned by another friend who is out for three chilla. I often go there and even sit with him in the shop and talk. From the beginning of our friendship we often entertain each other (with food). However after giving him the loan I was feeling reluctant to accept his invitation. I even expressed my cause of reluctance to him, to which he replied that he did not have any such intention prior to inviting me. Hearing this I accepted his invitation, keeping in mind our friendship that existed even before giving him the loan.

Recently I heard a lecture where Maulana Sulaiman Moola narrated a story (which more or less means) that Imam Abu Hanifa (ra) did not even take the shade of the tree of a person to whom he had loaned some money, cause he did not wanted to get any benefit from a person to whom he gave a loan.

(After hearing this) The next time that friend of mine invited me; I politely refused to accept it citing my reason. Now please enlighten me on what to do. Should I make a rough calculation of the amount that he might have spent to entertain me, and then when I take back the money should I take that amount less and what about my friends remark about his intention. Please let me know what can I do?

Lending money to an Islamic School on interest

Q: Zaid is willing to lend a Islamic School 50 thousand pounds for a year, on the condition that at the end of the year he gets his full money back, on top of that the School will have to pay him 400 pounds every month,so in total at the end of the year the School will be paying him 54 thousand and 800 pounds,(4 thousand 800 pounds extra) according to Shariah is this permissible,If not permissible could you please explain a Sharee method where the School may borrow money of Zaid and he may also benefit?

Selling an item without taking possession of it

Q: my friend wants to help me out financially. Therefore, he has decided that I should organize for him prospective buyers, he will sell to them and deliver to them but the invoice will be made out to me,they must pay me, I must take out my profit and then pay him the remainder, he will just take the cost price for it. In this whole process I will not take delivery of the goods at all. how do I overcome this as i have no time to take delivery of the goods first? is it possible that for example, I give this friend of mine R50 and tell him that now we are partners in the business and for for every transaction we will discuss how much we both should receive,even though i just gave R50 but maybe I will end up getting more than him since he will only take cost price or slightly above cost price. if i am his partner, even though a silent partner,then taking qabza is not necessary for me as he as my partner is selling the goods so it’s as if i am selling the goods. will this be permissible? 

Lying in order to get an overdraft facility

Q: I have been dealing and negotiating with the banks and got a credit line (overdraft facility) approved for the company. To get this done I had told many lies to the bank (projections of business). I know that this was wrong and made tawbah to Allah Ta'ala. My question is that the facility comes with an interest cost. Since I had negotiated this with the bank by giving them false information/lies, etc., should I inform the bank about my mistakes? Or is it sufficient to only make tawbah?

The method of structuring a partnership when some partners do not have wealth

Q: A business plan has been drawn up for a company wherein there are two partners sharing 50 percent each but they have no capital to start. A third party is keen on investing 100 percent of the capital into the business and he also understands that all the risks are borne by him alone. The two partners will be running the business and attending to the day to day activities of the business while the investor will merely advise and assist with decisions and the future planning of the business.

1. Can you explain the Shari’ah compliant way to structure this partnership?

2. How should the drawings of the three partners be structured?

3. The investor will invest for a short-term period of three years. At the termination of the period, what will be the correct way of settling?