Q: I wasn’t really religious growing up so I made severe mistakes.
I made a business that’s doing great alhamdulilah. However, I stole money from someone to begin the business. Since then, I’ve focused on deen more and I’ve repented for this and intended to never go back to this sin.
Can I keep the profits ?
A: Under some pretext, return the money you had stolen to the person you stole it from. The profits you will earn after returning the money will be halaal for you.
As for the profits which you have earned before returning the money, then in regard to this wealth, there are two opinions of the Hanafi Fuqaha.
According to the first opinion of the Fuqaha, all the wealth will not be halaal and will have to be given in charity without the intention of receiving any reward. This is the opinion of the author of Hidaayah and Mabsoot.
According to the second opinion, which is the opinion of Imaam Karkhi (rahimahullah)), there are five situations.
Below are the five situations with their sharee rulings:
(1) If a person specifies the haraam money saying that he will purchase with it (e.g. a person stole a R5 coin and then specifies that he will pay for the item he is buying with this R5 coin and then he gives the money to the person he is buying from).
(2) He gave the haraam money to the seller before purchasing the item, and then purchased the item in exchange of it.
In both these two cases, since the haraam money was specified for the purchase, the item he bought with it will be haraam, and any wealth earned through it will also be haraam.
Even if he returns the money to the person from whom he had stolen the money, the profits which he had earned through the haraam money before paying the value of it to the person he had stolen from will remain haraam and will have to be given to the poor without the intention of receiving any reward.
(3) If he did not specify the haraam money at the time of purchase, but after purchasing, he paid with it.
(4) He specified the haraam money, but he paid using halaal money.
(5) He specified halaal money, but paid with haraam money.
According to Imaam Karkhi (rahimahullah), in all these three situations, the wealth earned through the haraam wealth will be permissible to keep. However, he should return the money he stole to the person from whom he had stolen the money. Similarly, he should make taubah for committing this sin and make a firm resolve that he will not repeat this sin in the future.
And Allah Ta'ala (الله تعالى) knows best.
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