Warning against imitating the Jews in their deception regarding the prohibitions of Allah, with examples from reality.
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The Shaykh : It has been found among those who came after this Ummah (the Muslim community) people who imitated the Jews in their deception regarding the prohibitions of Allah. There are those who deceive regarding riba (usury or interest), there are those who deceive regarding marriage, and there are those who deceive regarding the oppression of their brothers through various types of tricks. Every person from this Ummah who reaches a forbidden thing through a trick is similar to whom? To the most wicked of Allah’s servants, the Jews. There are people now who say: If you give a person ten thousand riyals in cash for eleven thousand riyals on a deferred basis, is it haram (forbidden) or not? It is haram. He says: How do we make this haram permissible? Come, I will sell you bags of cardamom. I think you know cardamom, which is put in coffee. I will sell you bags of cardamom for eleven thousand. We go to the shop owner and I sell you bags of cardamom for eleven thousand, which are now worth only ten thousand, deferred to one year. Then this debtor buys them and sells them to the shop owner. For how much does he sell them?
The questioner : Twelve thousand.
The Shaykh : No, no, less than that, because the shop owner is not willing to buy them from you for the same price he sold them for. He says: Let me lower the price for you, because this poor man is being squeezed from two sides: from the shop owner and from the creditor. The shop owner says: This is worth ten thousand riyals if I sold it, but I only took nine thousand five hundred, and I am concerned about the money. So he says: There is no harm. Then the debtor takes the money and leaves with it. I ask you by Allah, is this a sale? Is it a real sale? Because the one who bought it is the creditor; he does not turn it over or look at what is in it. And I think if the shop owner brought bags of straw and wrapped them up and said what is in them is cardamom, or brought bags of sand and said what is in them is sugar, and sold them to the creditor, and the creditor gave the debtor the money, I believe the matter would proceed. Why? Because the creditor does not turn them over or look inside, and the debtor likewise does not turn them over or look inside. So it returns to whom? To whom does it return? To the shop owner, the first seller. Can it be said that this is a valid sale? Absolutely not. But this action combines two harms: the harm of riba (usury or interest) and the harm of deceiving Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and the believers.[Al-Baqarah 2:9] This trick, and may Allah protect us, is called by some scholars the triple riba (usury or interest) trick. It contains great harms, which are not the subject of mention here, but they are very numerous.
The questioner : Twelve thousand.
The Shaykh : No, no, less than that, because the shop owner is not willing to buy them from you for the same price he sold them for. He says: Let me lower the price for you, because this poor man is being squeezed from two sides: from the shop owner and from the creditor. The shop owner says: This is worth ten thousand riyals if I sold it, but I only took nine thousand five hundred, and I am concerned about the money. So he says: There is no harm. Then the debtor takes the money and leaves with it. I ask you by Allah, is this a sale? Is it a real sale? Because the one who bought it is the creditor; he does not turn it over or look at what is in it. And I think if the shop owner brought bags of straw and wrapped them up and said what is in them is cardamom, or brought bags of sand and said what is in them is sugar, and sold them to the creditor, and the creditor gave the debtor the money, I believe the matter would proceed. Why? Because the creditor does not turn them over or look inside, and the debtor likewise does not turn them over or look inside. So it returns to whom? To whom does it return? To the shop owner, the first seller. Can it be said that this is a valid sale? Absolutely not. But this action combines two harms: the harm of riba (usury or interest) and the harm of deceiving Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and the believers.