What is the buy-back sale?

The questioner : ... Two questions. What is the sale of *'inah*? Second, what is the position of the known schools of jurisprudence, the seventy-two sects that exist?

The Shaykh : The second question, meaning it is not clear, what is the position of the schools?

The questioner : What is the position of the schools known to us currently, the known sects.

Another questioner : ... The sects.

The Shaykh : Ah, this is just his question, but it is wrong. It is not the position of the schools regarding the sects; he wants to say, what is our position regarding the schools? Do we consider them among the sects or not? There is a great difference between what you intend and what you say. As for the sale of *'inah*, the first question, it is this: you come wanting to buy a refrigerator, but in reality you do not want to buy a refrigerator; you want money. You come to the merchant and ask about the price of the refrigerator. For example, it is one hundred pounds. Before he names the price to you, you engage in a transaction that we also consider not permissible. He says to you, "Do you want to buy it in cash or on installments?" As we said in the case of the sale of *'inah*, you do not want to buy it at all. You say, "No, I want to buy it on installments." If you said installments, he might say eighty or ninety. Excuse me, cash or installments? He says to you, one hundred. So you come and say, "I want this refrigerator on installments or in cash?" You say, "Installments." He says, "One hundred." He records one hundred on it, and that is the end of everything, but nothing is actually finished. Why? Because you will return, having bought the refrigerator as a seller, and the merchant, who was the seller to you, will return to you as a buyer. And you say to him, "Do you want to buy this refrigerator from me in cash?" He was selling it to you on installments, for example, for eighty, so now he buys it from you for seventy-five or less, depending on what suits him and his greed and avarice. So you take the seventy-five dinars and leave, and what was recorded on you? One hundred dinars. This is the form of the sale of *'inah*. And *'inah* is derived from the *'ayn* (essence) and self of the thing, meaning this refrigerator, its essence and self, was sold and bought in one session, without moving from its place, with two different prices: a high price, which is the price of the first sale, and a reduced price, which is the price of the second sale. All of this is twisting and turning and deception, like the trick of the Jews in making lawful what Allah has forbidden of *riba* (usury or interest). Instead of the buyer of the refrigerator coming to the merchant in the manner of the sale of *'inah* when he does not want to buy, instead of coming to him and saying, "My brother, I need seventy-five dinars, give them to me and I will give them to you after so many months for one hundred dinars," that is exposed. That is exposed *riba*. The Jews did not do that: seventy-five, paying one hundred instead of seventy-five. That is exposed *riba*. So Satan made their evil deeds attractive to them and said to them, "This is exposed *riba*, but twist and turn regarding the legal ruling, and you will reach your goal, which is taking a loan with *riba* through what? This sale, the sale of *'inah*. Exactly as it is authentic from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) that he said: What is the meaning of the hadith? Allah forbade the Jews the fats, as He indicated to that by saying: Among them are the fats of the slaughtered animal. So it was forbidden for them to benefit from the fat; they would throw it on the ground as they throw filth and the like of what does not fatten and does not satisfy hunger. So the Jews endured that for a period, then Satan whispered to them. And the Jews, and what do you know about the Jews? Greed and avarice for money. He said to them, "How do you waste these fats on the ground? Take them and put them in large vessels, the *hullal*, and light a fire underneath them. These fats will melt and take a new form, so you will be able to sell them and benefit from their prices." And so they did, and they thereby deserved the curse of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) upon them, along with other causes. What is the difference between the fat before it melted and the fat after it melted? It is fat before and fat after. No sane person doubts this at all. But this is how Satan made this change attractive to them in order to make lawful what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has forbidden. What is the difference between someone saying to the merchant, "Give me seventy-five and I will pay you one hundred after so long," and inserting this intermediary between them? The result is the same, it does not differ. Taking seventy-five and paying one hundred. Is this lawful? Far be it from Allah. And so there is a hadith in whose chain I have something of weakness, and Al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir (may Allah have mercy on him) improved its chain in the *Tafsir*, from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), who said: And the Muslims have fallen into such deception in many matters. There are people among us, merchants, one of whom was known... a white turban, a merchant in the market. A poor man comes carrying a bag of sugar, and in it are dozens of Ottoman gold pounds at that time. He says, "Take this bag, it is the *zakah* of my wealth." The man is concerned; he cannot carry the bag. He tries to find a porter. The man pretends that he has no knowledge of it. He says to him, "Okay, I will buy the bag from you instead of you carrying the bag to your house." He pays him the price of the bag, and in it is what is worth a hundred bags. He thinks that he has performed the *zakah* of his wealth and purified himself. This is the opposite. If he had kept these pounds and these lira in his box, it would have been less evil for him. I do not say it would have been better for him than this Satanic trick. In conclusion, the sale of *'inah* is therefore selling the thing in one session twice with two different prices as an intermediary to make exposed *riba* lawful. I hope it has become clear.

The questioner: Yes.