A man whose wealth is from riba wants to buy a book with this money. Should we sell him the book?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The Shaykh : As for you, if a usurer comes to you, one you know is a usurer, meaning his wealth is forbidden, and this is a matter of reality that is important and has many branches, and he wants to buy a book from you, do you sell it to him or not?
The questioner : I sell it to him.
The Shaykh : But what do you think of this money? The money with which I buy the book.
The questioner : Riba
The Shaykh : It is ribawi money. Well, the fact that you sell it to him is the correct answer, but when we want to study this correct answer, we need to study what our view is at that time regarding his acquired wealth? We say he is sinful in the way he earned his forbidden wealth, but you are not disobedient in your sale of the book, because in this sale you are not helping him in his evil; rather, perhaps you are alleviating it for him or trying to divert him from it; is that clear?
The questioner : Yes, well, if you please... in the present time, from now until Allah prepares for us the righteous society I mentioned, so that it comes and changes the financial system, in the present time, well, this period may be long, of course, in the present time, because there are now signs of it; what do we do? We know now that everything in the country, from outside, clothes and everything, all the components of life, we import from outside, and it is impossible for a merchant to import anything except through a bank credit, it is impossible, I mean; so if we adopt your opinion now and you try to end the business in the bank, life will stop and the wheel of production will stop, and consequently we will return to backwardness again, so what is your opinion?
The Shaykh : Your speech contains discussion from several aspects; so let us take the last word I heard from you: we will return to backwardness. What is the backwardness you mean?
The questioner : Backwardness is that now we are isolating ourselves and separating from the world around us...
The questioner : I sell it to him.
The Shaykh : But what do you think of this money? The money with which I buy the book.
The questioner : Riba
The Shaykh : It is ribawi money. Well, the fact that you sell it to him is the correct answer, but when we want to study this correct answer, we need to study what our view is at that time regarding his acquired wealth? We say he is sinful in the way he earned his forbidden wealth, but you are not disobedient in your sale of the book, because in this sale you are not helping him in his evil; rather, perhaps you are alleviating it for him or trying to divert him from it; is that clear?
The questioner : Yes, well, if you please... in the present time, from now until Allah prepares for us the righteous society I mentioned, so that it comes and changes the financial system, in the present time, well, this period may be long, of course, in the present time, because there are now signs of it; what do we do? We know now that everything in the country, from outside, clothes and everything, all the components of life, we import from outside, and it is impossible for a merchant to import anything except through a bank credit, it is impossible, I mean; so if we adopt your opinion now and you try to end the business in the bank, life will stop and the wheel of production will stop, and consequently we will return to backwardness again, so what is your opinion?
The Shaykh : Your speech contains discussion from several aspects; so let us take the last word I heard from you: we will return to backwardness. What is the backwardness you mean?
The questioner : Backwardness is that now we are isolating ourselves and separating from the world around us...
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.