What is the ruling on promoting goods by offering a specific amount as a prize to a person who purchases a certain quantity?
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The questioner : The question is the same as what some of the brothers mentioned, namely that there is a person who has goods and wants to promote these goods. For example, he takes a box of milk and puts a prize of such-and-such amount on it, or...
The Shaykh : Yes, yes.
The questioner : Is this permissible?
The Shaykh : This has a detailed ruling. They did it with Pepsi and others and set it up...
The questioner: It is the same thing.
The Shaykh : The same thing, yes. This reality, I do not know what they are doing, but the Shari'ah perspective views it in one of two ways. If we assume, for example, that this Pepsi was being sold for a qirsh, and when the group decided to make it a lottery, as they call it, they added a quarter of a qirsh to the price of the qirsh, which is the original price they were selling it for before. The purpose of this addition is that they buy the prize and put it in one, two, or three bottles, meaning the price of the prize did not come out of their pocket, but rather came out of the customers' pockets. So it would be riba (usury or interest), because they took the value of the prize from ten thousand people under the name of what? The lottery.
But if we assume the case is the reverse, yes.
The questioner : This is gambling.
The Shaykh : Gambling, yes.
But if we assume the reverse, a merchant who has a system and profits from the goods he trades in by a margin of five percent, and decides, in order to promote his goods and trade, to lower the profit from five percent to four percent, and saves from each item, for example, a qirsh. The total qirshes that accumulated with him, he used to buy what? An item, and made a lottery around it. This is called in the language of the Shari'ah a ja'alah (reward for a specific task). A ja'alah from here. In this way, they did not take an extra amount from those they dealt with, but rather from their own pocket.
The questioner : This is what happens, O Shaykh.
The Shaykh : I do not know; I do not testify because I did not know. So if it is in this form, it is permissible. Otherwise, the first form is forbidden.
The Shaykh : Yes, yes.
The questioner : Is this permissible?
The Shaykh : This has a detailed ruling. They did it with Pepsi and others and set it up...
The questioner: It is the same thing.
The Shaykh : The same thing, yes. This reality, I do not know what they are doing, but the Shari'ah perspective views it in one of two ways. If we assume, for example, that this Pepsi was being sold for a qirsh, and when the group decided to make it a lottery, as they call it, they added a quarter of a qirsh to the price of the qirsh, which is the original price they were selling it for before. The purpose of this addition is that they buy the prize and put it in one, two, or three bottles, meaning the price of the prize did not come out of their pocket, but rather came out of the customers' pockets. So it would be riba (usury or interest), because they took the value of the prize from ten thousand people under the name of what? The lottery.
But if we assume the case is the reverse, yes.
The questioner : This is gambling.
The Shaykh : Gambling, yes.
But if we assume the reverse, a merchant who has a system and profits from the goods he trades in by a margin of five percent, and decides, in order to promote his goods and trade, to lower the profit from five percent to four percent, and saves from each item, for example, a qirsh. The total qirshes that accumulated with him, he used to buy what? An item, and made a lottery around it. This is called in the language of the Shari'ah a ja'alah (reward for a specific task). A ja'alah from here. In this way, they did not take an extra amount from those they dealt with, but rather from their own pocket.
The questioner : This is what happens, O Shaykh.
The Shaykh : I do not know; I do not testify because I did not know. So if it is in this form, it is permissible. Otherwise, the first form is forbidden.
Source
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