Interest and Gambling

Mandatory Insurance Claims

Q: My friend was going from Torino to Rome in a car with his friends (my friend was not the car owner). Another person crashed his car into the car which my friend was travelling in. In Italy, it is mandatory for every car to have insurance. In the case of an accident, anyone who was in the car and was injured, whether the owner or just a passenger, will be paid some money, depending on the extent of their injury. My friend was injured in this accident and his collar bone was broken. Regarding this situation, we want to ask the following questions:

Fund Raising Competition

Q: A competition is being run where a certain amount is given as a donation and the donor is entered into a draw for an Umrah ticket and a quad bike. The money is used for a campaign to free a prisoner and the prizes are sponsored by third parties. Is this type of competition permissible?

School Competition

Q: I am part of a class in which schools gather and the students debate on issues of world problems and how to solve them. We each research a world problem and write papers/speeches for the competition. When the schools gather the host school asks for funds to cover costs. At the end of the competition the host school gives awards to the students who performed the best.

Now there are three things I would like to point out in this competition:

  1. The money given to the host is used for food, janitors, and printing costs and as such cannot be waived.

  2. The awards are mostly paper certificates and some trophies but all of which have little to no monetary value.

  3. I recieve a grade on my performance regardless of if I get an award but some students there do not as it is not a class for them but a club.

Will this amount to gambling?