Q: I regard my sister-in-law as my own sister. Can I consider her to be my mahram and show my concern for her by helping her, visiting her when she is sick and calling her on the phone to enquire about her well being?

Q: I work in an organisation which is an entrepreneurship development institute. The organisation trains entrepreneurs, offers business development services and provides them finance for starting their business by linking them to banks where they are charged interest and give loans directly also. I am working there as a coordinator responsible for the preparation of entrepreneur’s project reports which cover all the aspects including financials of the business. In simple words, entrepreneurs are given loans for business and I prepare their project reports without which they can’t get a loan facility as it is considered to be an essential document for securing finance. I want to know whether my job is halaal or haraam, and in case it’s haraam, can I continue working here till I get another job or should I quit immediately?

Q: If I don’t have stock in my business, can I sell the goods? For example, a client comes and purchases a load of bricks and wants it delivered to his house. He pays us for the bricks and delivery, and though we don’t have it in stock, we accept the money. We then collect the bricks from the brick manufacturer and deliver it directly to the client’s house. Is this permissible?

Q: Is it permissible to sell educational toys with pictures of animate objects on them? One example is a wooden puzzle that has a picture of an animal on it.

Q: Is it permissible for me to make dolls without heads and sell them for children to play with?

Q: I bought a batch of stock at a certain price. Thereafter, the price of the stock items went up, causing the market value to increase. Can I raise my price on these items, even though I am still selling stock from the old batch which I bought at the lower price?

Q: Telkom offers a certain internet package where you receive a free DSTV Explorer decoder. If I take the package, can I sell the decoder and keep the money?

Q: I am a car dealer. I am not involved in finance. However, I accept different forms of payment, such as cash, EFT and via a card machine. Is it permissible for me to decide the price of a vehicle depending on the customer’s form of payment? The bank charges me 3,25% (for a credit card) and 1,75% (for a debit card) of the total amount if the card machine is used. Can I add this percentage onto the original price of the vehicle? If so, does it have to be the exact amount the bank charges me or can I round off or add to the amount as I desire?

Q: 

1. I am a bookseller. Can I sell books that contain some pictures of animate objects? Most of the content of the books do not contain pictures of animate objects.

2. Can I sell paper, ink, etc. to printers knowing that they print pictures as well?

Q: I do accounts for a certain person. Recently, a situation arose where according to my books, we owed a supplier R100 (for example), but according to the supplier, we only owed him R50. The reason for the difference is that the supplier made a mistake in his calculation. I pointed this out to my employer but he still chose to remain quiet. What should I do?