Business and Dealings

Using violence to retrieve money from a debtor

Q: To what extent can a person go, in shariat, when it comes to a person getting his money out of a debtor.

1. Can he resort to violence by sending someone behind the debtor to give him a good thrashing?

2. If a person hired a debt collector, can he impose the fees on the debtor as he was the cause of these undue expenses?

3. If not, will the masalah change if the debtor had signed before taking goods on account, that in the event of default in payment, all expenses incurred to retrieve the debt will be borne by the debtor?

4. Can one send someone to forcefully take the debtors car away and sell it to retrieve his money?

5. If one comes to know that someone else is owing the debtor some money, can one take that money straight from that person without the debtor's qabdah or allowance? Will this be permissible for the person owing the debtor the money, i.e. will his debt be discharged?

Asking for a bribe

Q: If someone has many subordinates (workers under him) who daily comes to him for approval of their work. Can he ask them to provide him with something to eat if they want their work to be done before others?

Advising Muslim clients not to purchase properties that have haraam businesses and occupations as tenants

Q: As an estate agent I regularly deal in property. Often I am faced with confusion when fellow Muslims wish to buy a property that is currently leased to a non Muslim and haram organisations. Below are some examples of tenants whose buildings are for sale, and I have to advise Muslims whether it is permissible for them to buy in or not:

1. Non Muslim homes

2. Supermarkets that sell haram products

3. Liquor stores

4. Gambling dens

5. Non Muslim places of worship

Speaking lies to use softwares

Q: There are softwares that require us to meet a certain requirement in order to use them. For example, one such software can be downloaded for free, but after a 30-day trial the software asks questions like "How often did you travel by airplane last year?" If we select the "more than 2 times" option, the software stops working and we have to uninstall it. However, if we choose the option "less than 3 times," it lets us continue its use.

1. Will it be permissible to use the software if we select that we flew less than 3 times even though if we did not?

2. If someone other than the user, who did fly less than 3 times, selects that option, can the user continue the software's use? There are websites which have a pop-up that comes up, asking us to subscribe to the website. If we don't want to subscribe, we can close the pop-up by clicking on sentences like "Not yet, I'll subscribe later," or, "No, I don't like to learn."

3. If I don't intend to ever subscribe to the website, then would clicking on these types of sentences to make the pop-up go away be permissible?

4. Would it be a lie?