What is the ruling on one who obtains an age estimation certificate while possessing a birth certificate in order to gain certain benefits, such as medical treatment, admission to an institution, or a job?
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The questioner : Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy. We have what is called an age estimation certificate.
The Shaykh : What?
The questioner : Age estimation is a certificate for determining a person's age in the absence of a birth certificate. A birth certificate or age estimation certificate is required from a person in many cases, including: admission to study, obtaining a passport, medical treatment, employment, or calculating years of service to determine the age for exemption from service. However, age estimation certificates have come to be requested even by those who have an original and valid birth certificate, such as adding a little to their age to enroll them in school at an early age, or because their age exceeds the acceptable limit, or for a job that requires a specific age. As for most people, they reduce their age by several years in this certificate for many interests, such as competing with students for admission to the police academy or the army, or obtaining discounted travel tickets for youth, and so on. What is your opinion on these harms, which many people have been afflicted with?
The Shaykh : First: Peace and the person sitting with his brothers is not prescribed. Many people have now become accustomed to saying, when they submit a question while in the same place: "Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy, the question is such and such." The Companions were with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and the questioner would ask without saying "Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy."
And if the greeting does not have a Sharia reason, it is not prescribed. So here we say: Submit the question without a greeting, unless a man enters, greets, and then asks.
As for the matter of age estimation, meaning: estimating a person's years, i.e., estimating the years of his age, if it is needed because he does not have a birth certificate, or if he has a birth certificate that was lost and he forgot the year he was born, there is no harm in the estimation. This is because one of the principles of Sharia is that when certainty is impossible, we return to the preponderance of opinion through investigation. As for the one who has a birth certificate but conceals it, he is sinful, because of the deception, lying, and circumvention of the state's systems involved in that, and consequently, consuming wealth unlawfully if consuming wealth unlawfully results from it.
And we regret that this occurs among Muslims today, because these are the characteristics of whom? The characteristics of the hypocrites:Sahih al-Bukhari 33 And this is a treacherous and lying person, treacherous and lying, because he will say: "I do not have a birth certificate" while he does have one, and he will take, for example, based on that estimated age certificate, what he does not deserve if his age were known. So there is treachery in what he is entrusted with, and it is obligatory for the Muslim to rise above all of this, and to know that Allah's provision is not obtained by His disobedience. The evidence that Allah's provision is not obtained by His disobedience but rather by His mindfulness is His saying, the Exalted: [At-Talaq 65:2-3].
The Shaykh : What?
The questioner : Age estimation is a certificate for determining a person's age in the absence of a birth certificate. A birth certificate or age estimation certificate is required from a person in many cases, including: admission to study, obtaining a passport, medical treatment, employment, or calculating years of service to determine the age for exemption from service. However, age estimation certificates have come to be requested even by those who have an original and valid birth certificate, such as adding a little to their age to enroll them in school at an early age, or because their age exceeds the acceptable limit, or for a job that requires a specific age. As for most people, they reduce their age by several years in this certificate for many interests, such as competing with students for admission to the police academy or the army, or obtaining discounted travel tickets for youth, and so on. What is your opinion on these harms, which many people have been afflicted with?
The Shaykh : First: Peace and the person sitting with his brothers is not prescribed. Many people have now become accustomed to saying, when they submit a question while in the same place: "Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy, the question is such and such." The Companions were with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and the questioner would ask without saying "Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy."
And if the greeting does not have a Sharia reason, it is not prescribed. So here we say: Submit the question without a greeting, unless a man enters, greets, and then asks.
As for the matter of age estimation, meaning: estimating a person's years, i.e., estimating the years of his age, if it is needed because he does not have a birth certificate, or if he has a birth certificate that was lost and he forgot the year he was born, there is no harm in the estimation. This is because one of the principles of Sharia is that when certainty is impossible, we return to the preponderance of opinion through investigation. As for the one who has a birth certificate but conceals it, he is sinful, because of the deception, lying, and circumvention of the state's systems involved in that, and consequently, consuming wealth unlawfully if consuming wealth unlawfully results from it.
And we regret that this occurs among Muslims today, because these are the characteristics of whom? The characteristics of the hypocrites: