Is it permissible for the owner of a property to demand a khulu' (vacating fee) from the tenant because the state obligates the owner to rent out his building at low prices?

The questioner : If the owner of the property wants to demand the vacating of the rented property, he must satisfy the tenant.

The Shaykh : Yes, exactly.

The questioner : Professor Ali answered.

Another questioner : Did he convince in his answer?

The questioner: Yes.

Another questioner : No, at the present time the issue is very specific, and this is actually happening in Egypt. Since the old regime, the days of Abd al-Nasser and before, the state set a limit on rent that must not exceed certain amounts according to the specifications of the building and the area of the building, so that the rent is actually very low. That is, the one who wants to build a building to rent it out first becomes the tenant the owner in the law, so that even if the owner of the property wants to benefit from his property for his son or such, he cannot; he has become the owner. Then the rent is limited, meaning that the rent for this apartment over time is five pounds, ten pounds, twenty pounds. For this reason, if he bought kerosene with them and sold it in the streets, he would get ten times the revenue compared to if he invested it in another project. So they resort to the issue of taking what is called the khulu'at, meaning that in order to benefit from this apartment and this controlled, cheap rent, you have to pay initially such and such an amount, and then you enjoy the cheap rent. This is what actually happens. Now, where is the violation? The violation is that this man-made law does not treat the owner of the property justly in the first place; this is a violation of the Shari'ah in the first place. Second, the violation was also committed by violating, meaning you resorted to this method that contradicts the Shari'ah to remove the injustice imposed on you, and it is not from the path of the Shari'ah. So is there a justification, or is the error not done correctly at all?

The Shaykh : So what do we do now if the ruler imposes such a condition that contradicts the Shari'ah? Now, in all Arab countries, there are taxes, some of which, without a doubt, as we discussed in a previous gathering, have no justification. So if an individual is wronged by the ruler, is it permissible in the Shari'ah for the wronged person to wrong his Muslim brother? Or should he agree with him on a common word? And I see that the Shari'ah is the entire cure, but people do not know how to use and apply it. I understand from your words that if the matter is as you described, and I limited my statement to what I did not limit, meaning from what will come, that this khulu' is in response to the injustice of the state in setting property rents. So why do not these Muslim landlords agree with the tenant and say to him, "My brother, you know that this property, as you gave the example just now, that the gas seller in the streets earns more than the owner of all these apartments, so you know that this apartment deserves more than what the state imposed. And instead of me imposing a khulu' on you, my brother, let us agree with each other. We consider this khulu' as a monthly rent. So instead of giving me, for example, ten pounds every month according to the state system, give me twelve or fifteen." In my opinion, if the people were Muslim, the state would not actually have needed to impose this system that wrongs at least one of the parties. So if I can say that what you mentioned regarding the Egyptian government does not justify the Muslim taking something that has a specific implication, which is the khulu', and there is no khulu' in the detail you mentioned just now, then it is obligatory for Muslims when they fall under a system that contradicts the Shari'ah to judge themselves by the Shari'ah. If they do not do so, then as it is said: "The worm is in the vinegar," and as in the weak hadith: This is what happened.