Interest and Gambling

Rewards from credit cards

Q: You have a fatwa on your website that states using rewards from credit card companies is impermissible (ebucks); is using rewards from a departmental store the same thing if they give you 15% discount when you purchase their products on their credit card? Does it make a difference if the actual funding of the credit card is done through a separate financial institution?

Free travel insurance with tickets purchased using a credit card

Q: If a person pays for a flight overseas with his credit card, the bank provides free travel insurance. Will it be permissible to use a credit card (which he keeps in positive balance so as not to get involved in credit but to get a good credit record) to purchase his flight tickets with the card with the intention of getting the insurance? If not paying with the credit card he would have to use cash or a debit card anyway.

Using interest money to pay import duties

Q: Can interest money be used to pay the import duty, taxes, anti-dumping (AD), and countervailing duties (CVD) which a government levies on imported goods?

Anti-Dumping Duties (AD): "A protectionist tariff that a domestic government imposes on foreign imports that it believes are priced below fair market value...They come into play when a foreign company is selling an item significantly below the price at which it is being produced. The logic behind anti-dumping duties is to save domestic jobs, although critics argue that this leads to higher prices for domestic consumers and reduces the competitiveness of domestic companies producing similar goods." [http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/anti-dumping-duty.asp#ixzz3ZkRuXZqq]

Countervailing Duties (CVD): Countervailing duties (CVDs), also known as anti-subsidy duties, are trade import duties imposed under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules to neutralize the negative effects of subsidies. They are imposed after an investigation finds that a foreign country subsidizes its exports, injuring domestic producers in the importing country." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervailing_duties]

Father insuring the son's car

Q: A young man gets a car from his father. The car is registered on the father's name though. The father takes out insurance on the car against the young man's wishes. The young man meets in an accident costing 50 000 for the panel beaters. Now he has to claim from insurance since that's what the father had been paying for etc. Later, the cars window gets broken, the young man wants to pay for it with his own money to avoid getting involved in haram insurance, the father gets it repaired with insurance. Through this the young man had to become involved in the transaction because he had to take the car in, get quotes etc, because it's his car, would his involvement in this respect be sinful? What should he have done otherwise

Taking a profit against a loan

Q: I need my cousin to invest 50 000 for a service that I offer which is finding clients for private electricity pay as you go meters. My cousin is asking me to pay him back with extra benefits (cash) which I think is above the loan amount. Is there a special deal we can make to meet his requirements because I really need this as capital or is borrowing from absa shariah loans a better way to go?

Gambling

Q: I used to play cricket but I want to ask that some of our team boys gamble on every match. I don't, but I want to know that is it good to play in such a match where two players are gambling? They don't demand any money from us.