Q: I am a doctor and my patients, by and large, are contracted to medical aid. I encounter the following issues with my patients:

1. A patient is not sick and does not require any treatment. They ask me to give them cash (e.g. R500) and bill their medical aid for R500 by making out a fake visit with consultation and medication to the value of R500. The patients insist that since they are paying the medical aid on a monthly basis, and they are not claiming for treatment every month, they are entitled to do this to recover their money.

2. A patient brings a friend or relative to me. The patient has medical aid, but the person that they brought is not contracted to any medical aid. The patient asks me to treat this person, but bill their medical aid by filling in their details instead of the actual patient's details.

In the above two cases, is it permissible for me to do as the patient asks?

Q: If a person’s father passed away before his grandmother (i.e. Father’s mother) and the grandmother was inheriting from her grandmother will the grandsons inherit from the grandmothers estate while they are other brothers and sister of the father still living?

Q: In previous Ramzan my fast was broken due to my mistake. It was not due to intercourse because I am not married. Kindly tell me the repentence of it. Do I have to provide food to some people which is specified by Islam or is it allowed to provide charity to a deserving organization as repentence?

Q: Ebrahim and Qassim are brothers. They were married to two sisters. Ebrahim had a son, Ismail who got married to his cousin, Khadijah (Qassim’s daughter). They had 8 children. Ismail, the father passed away a long time ago. Thereafter 3 of the children, Omar, Husain and Zahra passed away before their mother. Now their mother passed away.

My question is, can the children of Omar, Husain and Zahra inherit from their grandmother? If they are not intitled to the inheritance, can they get anything via any other way since they looked after her quite a bit.

Q: If a person arrives late for salaah and notices that the saff of the children is going to join up with the sufoof of the adults, should he move the children to the back? 

Q: It has been openly challenged in the Quraan that no verse or chapter can be created by anyone similar to what is in it. What is the criteria and how to judge if a verse is similar or not with that of Quraan?

Q: I am 18 years old and will be completing my schooling this year. I am considering joining the army after I matriculate. Initially, after my training is complete, I will serve a certain amount of time in the army and may even be called upon to fight for the country (as is happening currently, where South Africa is fighting in certain other African countries).

My idea is that after some time, when I have sufficient training and experience, I will leave the army and become a mercenary (a soldier for hire). There is a great demand for mercenaries, especially in dangerous countries such as Iraq and other war-ridden countries like the African countries suffering from war lords, etc, and this profession is extremely lucrative.

Is this profession permissible in Islam?

Q: I read somewhere that Moulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi (Rahimullah) said that it is the mother's right to name the child. Is this right?

Q: When I offer namaaz in the masjid, when going into sajdah, many peoples heads touch the feet of the person in the front row. Whats the ruling on it?Does it affect the namaaz in any way?

Q: We started tawaf from Maqam-e-Ebrahim thinking that it was the black stone during our first 3 umrahs (despite having read the umra guideline). After the 3rd umrah we realized the mistake. Will the umrahs be valid?