What is the ruling on deferred sale?

The questioner : What is your opinion on deferred sale?

The Shaykh : Yes, I have researched this issue thoroughly until the time has passed.
The students andThe Shaykh : they are laughing —
The truth is, we have repeated this discussion many, many times. The summary is that what is implied by the question is certainly not what appears from the wording itself, but rather what lies behind the wording. Because if I were to stick to your wording, I would say this is better than a cash sale; a deferred sale is better than a cash sale. But the intended meaning is the increase in exchange for the deferred sale; that is the intended meaning. I do not see this increase for two reasons: first, the text, and second, correct and sound deduction and consideration. As for the text, there are two hadiths. One of them is . One of the narrators of the hadith in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, Sammak ibn Harb, was asked, "What are two sales in one sale?" He said, "When you say, I will sell you this for so much in cash and so much and so much on credit. This is a sale in two sales, a sale in two sales." The second hadith, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . I say on this occasion that we benefit from both hadiths, "May Allah have mercy on you." We benefit from both hadiths, "May Allah have mercy on you." If Allah wills, the third point will come so we can repeat the phrase — he laughs.The Shaykh : We say three times: we benefit from the two hadiths in one benefit that both share in indicating, and then we benefit from each of the two hadiths in what is not derived from the other. As for the shared benefit, it is the prohibition of two sales in one sale. As for the benefit that each of the two hadiths has exclusively over the other, from the first hadith is the explanation of two sales in one sale. We understand from the first hadith the explanation of two sales in one sale, which is that you say, "I will sell you this recorder for so much in cash and so much and so much on credit." If we understand this benefit from the first hadith, let us look at what the benefit is in the other hadith where we do not understand it in the first hadith. Considering the first hadith, the increase is "riba" (usury or interest) first, and this is explicit from it. The other thing, which is very important, is that the first hadith, in that it prohibited two sales in one sale, and the original rule in prohibitions in transactions is an indication of invalidity. So we understood from the first hadith the opposite of the second, which is that it permitted two sales in one sale but invalidated the increase, because he said . His saying to him, "Take the lesser of the two," means the sale is valid because he permitted taking the lesser amount; but if he took the increase, he has eaten riba (usury or interest). So from this hadith and that one, we conclude with this result that the installment sale known today is riba (usury or interest). This is what I said first. Second, correct and sound consideration requires us to say what is understood from these two hadiths, because there is no disagreement among Muslims, and I do not say among jurists, that if a person comes to a seller of a need, let us say a car, and says to him, "So-and-so, lend me so many dinars, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, on the condition that I give you a profit increase of so much," he will say, "No, this is forbidden, this is riba (usury or interest)." That is why I said in this example that no two people differ on it. But if he says to him, "Sell me this car," and he says, "The installment price is so much and the cash price is so much," he had asked him before for a good loan to buy the car from him. He said, "Give me an increase, for example, one hundred dinars," and he said, "No, this is riba (usury or interest)." So when he sold him on installments, instead of the hundred, he asked for five hundred. What is the difference between this scenario and that scenario? One person comes to you and you ask him for a loan of four thousand dinars for a year, and you tell him, "I will give you one hundred dinars out of my own goodness." That is a righteous, good man, so he will say, "This is riba (usury or interest), this is not permissible." But if he then says to him, "Sell me this car," and he says, "This is four thousand in cash and four thousand and five hundred on credit," what is the difference between giving him four thousand and taking four thousand and five hundred, and introducing this merchandise or car as a means to make that increase lawful? There is absolutely no difference between this and that, except sticking to what some call "legal stratagems," which are actually more deserving of being called "Jewish stratagems," those whom Allah the Exalted has condemned in His Book and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) has cursed in some of his hadiths, such as his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . What did the Jews do? The fats were forbidden to them; no, this is forbidden, it is not permissible to eat or sell it. If they rendered them, meaning melted them, and then sold them and ate their prices, what is the difference between what is forbidden by text and what they did by interpretation? And as we say in the Levant, there is no difference except changing the form in order to eat. They said about some of the Sufis when they changed their clothes, "changing the form in order to eat." So the Jews changed the image in order to make lawful what Allah has forbidden with the lowest of stratagems. Now we are good people who do not eat riba (usury or interest), but by way of twisting and turning, introducing a means in the matter, which is the merchandise, this is permissible, and the matter has gone beyond this disputed scenario. There is another scenario where a wealthy intermediary is introduced between the buyer and the seller, meaning the merchant, so he says to him, "You go and take any car you want, and I will buy it for you, but as a fee for the intermediation, I want four thousand and four hundred instead of four thousand. The agency will take from him four thousand and five hundred." This intermediary goes and pays the price of the car to the agency four thousand, and he receives from the buyer after a year four thousand and four hundred... What is this four hundred increase? . And he is a good intermediary, praise be to Allah, so he helped his Muslim brother and went and bought him a car from the agency for four thousand, but he took five hundred for the four thousand instead of four hundred. Five for the agency, he took four hundred, in order to compete with the owner of the agency, or otherwise the one who wants to go directly to the bank and others to buy from the agency, but the bank will ask for less, and he is profitable in any case, because instead of giving four thousand in cash, he takes it for four thousand and four hundred. This is forbidden, it is not permissible. If he introduces an intermediary like this intermediation, and then we mention lastly this perspective, we mention lastly the virtue of fulfilling the need of a Muslim, and the virtue of charity, and that as it came in some hadiths . So if you lent a Muslim two hundred dinars, it is as if you gave charity and took one hundred dinars out of your pocket for the sake of Allah. The good loan has ceased among the merchants of Muslims today, even though this merchant is able to earn in his trade, in which he earns lawful money, and he acquires thereby good deeds like mountains, perhaps not attained by one who stands in night prayer and fasts by day, and he is like a saw going up and down, because if he sells in cash he benefits, if he sells on installments at the same price as cash he benefits in good deeds and charities. This good loan has ceased and gone out of the hands of Muslims because of what has come into their hands of installment sales, which the Salaf (the earliest generations) did not know, nor the Khalaf (the later generations), they do not know it as a system in trade and dealing, but it is merchandise that came to us from the lands of disbelief and misguidance, whom Allah the Exalted described by saying: . This is my perspective on this issue.

The questioner : Shaykh, at the beginning of your speech you referred to the saying of Sammak ibn Harb... So is the saying of Sammak a text in this, meaning?

The Shaykh : No, it is not a text, but it is an explanation from the narrator, and the issue, I told you, is a disputed one. If this explanation came from an Imam like Sufyan al-Thawri, for example, we would not ask where he got it from? We would say this is a man who is an Imam in jurisprudence, an Imam in hadith, an Imam in language, so we benefit from this benefit, along with the fact that this explanation has what precedes it that supports it by deduction and consideration. So many scholars, even in the end, you find this explanation in the end in "Gharib al-Hadith wa al-Athar" (The Strangeness of Hadith and Athar), you find this explanation even in the hadith . Ibn al-Athir says that this means two sales in one sale, and it is that you say, "I will sell you this for so much in cash and so much and so much on credit."

The questioner : ...

The Shaykh : Yes, Ibn al-Athir, yes.
Al-Halabi : The hadith is authentic with this wording, prohibiting the sale and the loan.

The Shaykh : Yes, it is authentic.
Al-Hawini : Also, Shaykh, Imam al-Nasa'i in the eighth volume of the Sunan, in the hadith . He said: "Chapter on the prohibition of two sales in one sale, and it is that he says, 'I will sell you this for so much in cash and so much and so much on credit.'"

The Shaykh : Yes, yes, many of them. I am gathering these people in one place, meaning that one day, if we find the time and the readiness, we will issue a message, or a treatise, that is beneficial in this regard, even if it does not cover the research exhaustively. As for our brother 'Abd al-Rahman 'Abd al-Khalq, who resides in Kuwait, have you seen this treatise?
Al-Halabi : But there is something, my teacher, are you finished?

The questioner : ...

The Shaykh : Please go ahead.
Al-Halabi : But let us continue with him on the topic.

The Shaykh : Another question, unrelated to the topic.
Al-Halabi : My teacher, some of the scholars of knowledge, such as Ibn al-Qayyim and others, I think, say that this interpretation is far-fetched, and that the closest thing to it is the sale of 'inah. So, the interpretation of the prohibition of two sales in one is the sale of 'inah itself. What is the value of...

The Shaykh : One by one, how is it applied?