Trade

Q: I am buying a pharmacy and am bringing in a colleague to work under me who specializes in increasing revenue. 

One of the ways he increases revenue is by selling codeine in bulk to a drug dealer at high prices who sells it on to addicts. My feeling is that this is haraam as its being sold to a haraam business who is then selling it to people to do haraam which causes suffering in the community. 

He also has contacts where he can sell the codeine in bulk to other pharmacies who may be selling it to drug addicts but we cannot verify this suspicion. Is this haraam? 

According to South African law, there is a quota of how much you can buy and sell in bulk because it is known to be an abused medicine but we cannot always verify what the intention is when selling large volumes to patients. 

I would truly value you advise on this.

Q: I would like to know if I ordered something from a company and they offered me another person's order and that person never pay for their order yet, can I purchase that order from the company?

Q: I would like to know about zakat. 

1. My wife has gold and silver ornaments and she is liable for zakat every year as they are above nisab. She wants to sell some of her silver ornaments and with that amount which she gets, she will purchase gold ornaments and this gold ornament she will give it to some poor and needy Muslim for the marriage purpose etc. 

My question is, can she do this kind of transaction, i.e. by selling silver and with that amount she can buy gold or she can only buy silver with that money in lieu of silver. Will it fall under riba, interest etc? 

2. Secondly, if we are not given cash by selling silver but the shopkeeper says that in lieu of silver sold you can purchase silver ornaments. Can we do that. But when cash is given by selling silver it is less and when the silver is purchased in lieu of silver we are getting more. 

For example if we are selling a silver ornament we are getting cash of Rs.16,000 (indian rupees) and when we are not taking cash but we are purchasing silver ornament in lieu of silver we are getting equivalent of Rs.26,000/- Is it ok to purchase silver like this? 

3.Can we purchase gold ornament equivalent of Rs 26,000/- or not. Do we have to purchase only silver in lieu of silver. What is the correct method to do it? 

Note: The weight may vary of gold and silver. The silver weight is more and the gold we will purchase will be less in weight but the amount will be of Rs. 26,000/- or more if the gold we purchase is of more value than rs 26,000/- so the extra we will pay to the shopkeeper cash from our side. If we cannot do all the above what is the shariah method to do it, please tell me.