Q: I own a jewellery store. We offer our customers a 'trade-in' service where they bring their old jewellery to us, we evaluate it and determine its worth, and then the customer takes jewellery of their choice to the value of the jewellery that was traded-in.
Is it correct to deal in this manner? If not, how should we conduct the deal?
Q: I am an oncologist (cancer specialist). I often have a situation where a patient comes to me in the advanced stages of cancer. According to my experience and knowledge, such a patient may have the life expectancy of only three months (for example).
Ethically, I am bound to inform the patient or their family of the situation. If I do not do so, I can be held liable for not informing them of the seriousness of the situation. However, I understand that this is against the Islamic teaching of giving hope to the patient and not causing them distress and anxiety. Furthermore, there have been certain cases, against the norm, where patients have ‘pulled through’ and surpassed the life expectancy period.
Nevertheless, I sometimes feel that it may be beneficial to indirectly indicate to the patient that their end may be near, as it will prompt them to set their affairs in order before passing away.
What is the correct understanding in this regard?
Q:
1. Is the earning from takaaful insurance clearly stated as haraam?
2. If such a person invites a friend for a dinner party at his home, will it be halaal for him to consume such type of food?
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: 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 earned money when I was young and bought a house on my brother's name. Now my brother is telling that this is his house and he will not give it to me.
Q: I am a single mother of a 5 years old child. I've been looking for jobs for my livelihood. However, I have been receiving interview calls from either banks or insurance companies mostly. I have no financial support from my ex husband or anyone else to take care of my daughter's expenses. I live in India so Islamic Banking is not prevalent. In this case, please advice if it is ok to work in a bank or an insurance company?
Q: I have a question regarding riba. I live in Germany and I want to rent a car for 12 months. My understanding is that all rental companies do not own the car, but they finance it from banks based on interest. As such, is it halal for me to rent cars?
Q: I am a shopkeeper who sells general merchandise.
Sometimes, people come to my store and want to use their debit card to draw money from my card machine. They will swipe their card in the machine, enter the amount that they want, and thereafter I will take the corresponding amount of cash from my till and give it to them while their bank deposits that amount in my account.
Can I charge them for this service? In other words, can I tell the customer to enter R205 into the machine while I give him R200 in cash? I will make R5 on the service of giving him the cash. Is this permissible?
Q: I own a manufacturing business where I take orders from customers and manufacture according to their specification. Once their order is prepared, they are notified and given a ten day period to collect the item from our warehouse.
The problem is that many customers delay in collecting their orders. This causes a problem for us as the uncollected orders take up space in the warehouse. In order to avoid this problem, we want to stipulate, at the time the order is placed, that if goods are not collected within ten days, then a stipulated storage fee will be charged for every day thereafter. Is this permissible in Shari’ah?