The Ruling on Prizes Offered by Commercial Establishments
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
The questioner asks: What is the ruling on the prizes offered by commercial establishments?
The Shaykh:
On what basis?
The questioner:
If a person buys from them a certain amount, they give him a prize or a card, and then they hold a drawing, so he may win a large prize or a small one.
The Shaykh:
These are forbidden competitions, because they also involve attracting customers and deceiving them. Perhaps they buy things they do not need, but rather to obtain these prizes. This involves the consumption of people's money and the deception of people, and this is not permissible.
Because a person may buy or come to this establishment with no desire to purchase except to obtain this prize. Perhaps he buys necessities he does not need in order to obtain this prize. This is not permissible because it involves consuming wealth through falsehood, and it also involves deceiving people. It also harms the owners of other establishments, because this takes customers away from the establishments that did not engage in this practice, so this is harmful to the people of the market as well. Avoiding these matters is obligatory upon Muslims, and buying and selling should be honest and noble, without these things that were brought to us from other lands, which are mostly bad customs and corrupt traditions. Yes.
The questioner asks: What is the ruling on the prizes offered by commercial establishments?
The Shaykh:
On what basis?
The questioner:
If a person buys from them a certain amount, they give him a prize or a card, and then they hold a drawing, so he may win a large prize or a small one.
The Shaykh:
These are forbidden competitions, because they also involve attracting customers and deceiving them. Perhaps they buy things they do not need, but rather to obtain these prizes. This involves the consumption of people's money and the deception of people, and this is not permissible.
Because a person may buy or come to this establishment with no desire to purchase except to obtain this prize. Perhaps he buys necessities he does not need in order to obtain this prize. This is not permissible because it involves consuming wealth through falsehood, and it also involves deceiving people. It also harms the owners of other establishments, because this takes customers away from the establishments that did not engage in this practice, so this is harmful to the people of the market as well. Avoiding these matters is obligatory upon Muslims, and buying and selling should be honest and noble, without these things that were brought to us from other lands, which are mostly bad customs and corrupt traditions. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، محاضرات في العقيدة والدعوة-088-مفهود العبادة في الإسلام|صالح الفوزان|كبار العلماء — youtube.com (1:10:27)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.