The ruling on a teacher accepting gifts from students
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, what is the ruling on teachers who are distinguished in the school accepting gifts from the students in general? Does this fall under the category of bribery?
Answer:
Yes, any employee who receives a salary is not permitted to accept gifts from the students, because he is a judge who influences their results in the exams and in... and if some of them give him gifts, meaning a person is human and his inclination leans toward them, he may increase their grades and lower the grades of those who do not give him anything. So it is not permissible for the teacher to accept gifts from the students. But if he is teaching on his own account, he is not an employee, he is teaching on his own account, just as they used to do in the traditional schools (kuttab) in the past, then there is no harm in him accepting what the student gives him, because he has no salary, so there is no harm in him accepting what the student gives him. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, what is the ruling on teachers who are distinguished in the school accepting gifts from the students in general? Does this fall under the category of bribery?
Answer:
Yes, any employee who receives a salary is not permitted to accept gifts from the students, because he is a judge who influences their results in the exams and in... and if some of them give him gifts, meaning a person is human and his inclination leans toward them, he may increase their grades and lower the grades of those who do not give him anything. So it is not permissible for the teacher to accept gifts from the students. But if he is teaching on his own account, he is not an employee, he is teaching on his own account, just as they used to do in the traditional schools (kuttab) in the past, then there is no harm in him accepting what the student gives him, because he has no salary, so there is no harm in him accepting what the student gives him. Yes.
Source
شرح بلوغ المرام من أدلة الأحكام [ صالح الفوزان ]، باب الرخصة في العرايا وبيع الأصول والثمار — islamhouse.com (17:20)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.