Is this ruse permissible?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : They validate all these statements and respond to al-Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on him), saying: This man is an imam in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and this man is a hadith scholar; how can a hadith scholar respond to a jurist?
The Shaykh : The jurist became a miser. Who responds to him? Who responds to him? It became Turkish for me. Let us concede and say that al-Bukhari did not know anything except transmitting the fiqh of a reporter or the practice of a listener. But this is clear for him: a man knows that this woman fell ill, and there are witnesses, witnesses, witnesses; what is the matter?
The questioner : A shaykh cites as evidence, even now in some regions, the hadith of selling the date.
The Shaykh : We stirred up the dust.
The questioner : He put on the robe.
The Shaykh : All right.
The questioner : This, and Ibn al-Qayyim refutes it, and so on.
The Shaykh : There is no harm; this is a permissible ruse. We hold this view. A man has poor dates and he wants good dates, but he cannot take a sa' (a dry measure of about 3 kg) from him either. So what does he do?
He would be left with nothing to eat but the poor dates; he would be left with nothing to eat but the poor dates. We say: sell the poor dates for dirhams, and buy good dates with the dirhams. There is nothing wrong with this; there is no riba (usury or interest) or anything else. Yes, if he agreed with the seller and said, "I want to sell you the poor dates for ten, on the condition that you sell me the good dates for ten, but less," this is not permissible. But without that condition, there is no harm. And even so, we say the best is the position of Imam Ahmad: do not buy from the one who sold to you. That is, if you sold the poor dates to a man who has good dates, it is better not to buy from him. Go to the market to get the good dates; if you do not find them, return to him. And this is undoubtedly better.
The Shaykh : The jurist became a miser. Who responds to him? Who responds to him? It became Turkish for me. Let us concede and say that al-Bukhari did not know anything except transmitting the fiqh of a reporter or the practice of a listener. But this is clear for him: a man knows that this woman fell ill, and there are witnesses, witnesses, witnesses; what is the matter?
The questioner : A shaykh cites as evidence, even now in some regions, the hadith of selling the date.
The Shaykh : We stirred up the dust.
The questioner : He put on the robe.
The Shaykh : All right.
The questioner : This, and Ibn al-Qayyim refutes it, and so on.
The Shaykh : There is no harm; this is a permissible ruse. We hold this view. A man has poor dates and he wants good dates, but he cannot take a sa' (a dry measure of about 3 kg) from him either. So what does he do?
He would be left with nothing to eat but the poor dates; he would be left with nothing to eat but the poor dates. We say: sell the poor dates for dirhams, and buy good dates with the dirhams. There is nothing wrong with this; there is no riba (usury or interest) or anything else. Yes, if he agreed with the seller and said, "I want to sell you the poor dates for ten, on the condition that you sell me the good dates for ten, but less," this is not permissible. But without that condition, there is no harm. And even so, we say the best is the position of Imam Ahmad: do not buy from the one who sold to you. That is, if you sold the poor dates to a man who has good dates, it is better not to buy from him. Go to the market to get the good dates; if you do not find them, return to him. And this is undoubtedly better.
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 3645 - 4600 هل هذه الحيلة مباحة؟ ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.