Selling coffee for wheat with deferred payment
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Fatwa No. ( 18092 )
Q: We inform Your Eminence through this letter that we have a case involving a man who sold another man one hundred bags of Nibari coffee for forty thousand riyals, deferring the price to the month of Muharram in the year 1414 AH, from the date of sale, which was 22/10/1413 AH. Then they agreed that
the equivalent of the amount would be a trailer load of wheat, weighing fifty tons, to be delivered by the coffee buyer to the seller. We hope from Allah, then from your excellence, to issue a ruling for us: Is this sale permissible or invalid, containing a religious prohibition? And if this sale is not permissible, is the buyer obligated to return this coffee to the one from whom he bought it, or is he obligated to deliver its value, which is the forty thousand riyals mentioned in the contract when they exchanged the sale? May Allah reward you with good and improve your reward, and prolong your life.
A: If this was by mutual agreement between them at the time of the contract, it is not permissible; because it is a stratagem to reach riba, which is selling coffee for food with deferred payment, and this is riba al-nasi'ah (usury of deferment). And if it was not by mutual agreement at the time of the contract, and it was more convenient, there is no harm in that; because there is no concern, which is the stratagem to reach riba.
Q: We inform Your Eminence through this letter that we have a case involving a man who sold another man one hundred bags of Nibari coffee for forty thousand riyals, deferring the price to the month of Muharram in the year 1414 AH, from the date of sale, which was 22/10/1413 AH. Then they agreed that
the equivalent of the amount would be a trailer load of wheat, weighing fifty tons, to be delivered by the coffee buyer to the seller. We hope from Allah, then from your excellence, to issue a ruling for us: Is this sale permissible or invalid, containing a religious prohibition? And if this sale is not permissible, is the buyer obligated to return this coffee to the one from whom he bought it, or is he obligated to deliver its value, which is the forty thousand riyals mentioned in the contract when they exchanged the sale? May Allah reward you with good and improve your reward, and prolong your life.
A: If this was by mutual agreement between them at the time of the contract, it is not permissible; because it is a stratagem to reach riba, which is selling coffee for food with deferred payment, and this is riba al-nasi'ah (usury of deferment). And if it was not by mutual agreement at the time of the contract, and it was more convenient, there is no harm in that; because there is no concern, which is the stratagem to reach riba.
Source
www.alifta.gov.sa
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.