Ruling for Long-distance Credit

In the name of Allah.

Is it allowed to sell goods through this way:

The goods that we’d like to sell was not located in our town (A) but in town B where our prospective buyer lives. The buyer just have to describe the attributes of the goods that he wanted and told us that in his town there was a person who sell the goods, then the buyer connected me to the goods owner. After that, I would negotiate with the goods owner and if we reached a deal, I would transfer some money to buy the goods, and after that the buyer could come to take the goods from its previous owner. Is it allowed to do such credit system?

May Allah reward you with goodness for your kind answer.

From: St Marwah

Answer:

Allah knows best, as far as I know, there are several forbidden matters occur in that system:

1. You sell something that you don’t own
2. Such transaction is just a trick to accommodate usury. The core of the transaction is that you lend some money to other people then he return it to you more than the actual sum. As for the goods, it is just served as a trick.

And Allah is the guider.

Answered by  Said Yai Ardiansyah, Lc., M.A (summarized from a discussion in the mailing list of PM-fatwa)

Article of www.syaria.com