The Ruling on the Suwa Card and the Lease of a Residence
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
We heard your fatwa regarding the Suwa card, and that you stated it is forbidden because a general lease is not restricted by time, and that it involves consuming people's wealth through this means. The question is: Do we apply this analogy to the lease of a residence? A person, when he leases a house, usually pays the rent in advance, and this rent is taken whether the tenant lives in the residence or not.
Answer:
This is not a lease; this is a sale. He sold the card to him with the condition that if a certain period passes, he will not benefit from it and it will be wasted on him. This is a sale and consuming wealth unjustly, because one who buys something is not restricted in benefiting from it; he benefits from it until it is exhausted, until the benefit from it is fully realized. As for saying to him, "You will not benefit from it except for a month or a year," while he has sold it to him as a sale—leasing may be limited to a year or years; a lease may be limited, but a sale may not. If you sell a commodity to someone, you do not say, "On the condition that you will not benefit from it except for a month or a year," but rather he benefits from it as long as it is fit for use. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you
We heard your fatwa regarding the Suwa card, and that you stated it is forbidden because a general lease is not restricted by time, and that it involves consuming people's wealth through this means. The question is: Do we apply this analogy to the lease of a residence? A person, when he leases a house, usually pays the rent in advance, and this rent is taken whether the tenant lives in the residence or not.
Answer:
This is not a lease; this is a sale. He sold the card to him with the condition that if a certain period passes, he will not benefit from it and it will be wasted on him. This is a sale and consuming wealth unjustly, because one who buys something is not restricted in benefiting from it; he benefits from it until it is exhausted, until the benefit from it is fully realized. As for saying to him, "You will not benefit from it except for a month or a year," while he has sold it to him as a sale—leasing may be limited to a year or years; a lease may be limited, but a sale may not. If you sell a commodity to someone, you do not say, "On the condition that you will not benefit from it except for a month or a year," but rather he benefits from it as long as it is fit for use. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you
Source
75-اللقاء الأسبوعي مع الشيخ صالح الفوزان - 30 — archive.org (45:17)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.