The ruling on paying money to ward off injustice from goods
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The Shaykh : And.
The questioner : This is also one of the difficult issues in which many people, especially the young people among us, find themselves when they bring in trade goods from certain countries. There are customs there that impose on them certain fees that sometimes defy imagination, so they resort to a method where they offer a bribe to the Muslims, and then they take their goods out and sell them in the market.
The Shaykh : And originally, they would refer to a fatwa stating that if a person does not know, for example, the fees imposed on him—whether he is ignorant or he knows that the fees will not exceed five percent—and he has not yet reached the port, but he is told that the fees have reached fifty or seventy percent, and he would be harmed if he paid them, he resorts to the bribe, and this has become the common practice. Everyone pays money to ward off injustice from himself, or to alleviate it, and there is no blame on him. Take this as a rule, and the sin is on the one who took the money.
The questioner : Even if he knows from the start.
The Shaykh : Whether he knows from the start or not.
The questioner : That the fee on the goods is specific, meaning he knows it in writing.
The Shaykh : There is no difference. Take this rule with you: whoever pays money to ward off injustice from himself, or to reduce it, or to extract a right that belongs to him, he owes nothing, and the sin is on the other party; otherwise, rights would be lost.
The questioner : This is also one of the difficult issues in which many people, especially the young people among us, find themselves when they bring in trade goods from certain countries. There are customs there that impose on them certain fees that sometimes defy imagination, so they resort to a method where they offer a bribe to the Muslims, and then they take their goods out and sell them in the market.
The Shaykh : And originally, they would refer to a fatwa stating that if a person does not know, for example, the fees imposed on him—whether he is ignorant or he knows that the fees will not exceed five percent—and he has not yet reached the port, but he is told that the fees have reached fifty or seventy percent, and he would be harmed if he paid them, he resorts to the bribe, and this has become the common practice. Everyone pays money to ward off injustice from himself, or to alleviate it, and there is no blame on him. Take this as a rule, and the sin is on the one who took the money.
The questioner : Even if he knows from the start.
The Shaykh : Whether he knows from the start or not.
The questioner : That the fee on the goods is specific, meaning he knows it in writing.
The Shaykh : There is no difference. Take this rule with you: whoever pays money to ward off injustice from himself, or to reduce it, or to extract a right that belongs to him, he owes nothing, and the sin is on the other party; otherwise, rights would be lost.
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 11- حكم دفع الرشوى مقابل تخليص البضاعة من الرسوم الجمركية #ابن_عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.