by Money prize
Question:
“When we bought some house paints, sometimes we found a money prize given by the paint manufacturer to the buyer, valued as IDR 20.000, or more. Is such prize allowed in Islam? “
Answer:
The ruling of such practice has been debated by the jurisprudence scholars. There are two opinions regarding this matter:
The first opinion stated that it was unlawful, because it was included in transactions which were termed by the past time scholars as “ muddu ajwah wa dirham”, an exchange of a usury commodity with the similar of it’s kind, but in one of the commodity there was additional, non-usury stuff.
For example: Dates were exchanged with dates, but with the second dates, there were additional stuff in the form of money. The exchanging of dates was an exchanging of similar usury commodity, but in one side of it, that was the second dates, there was an additional stuff which was not similar to the exchanged commodity. In this case, the stuff was money. This was the case of which the past time scholars named as, “Maddu ajwah wa dirham’.
The foundation of it was a hadith from Fadhalah Ibn Ubaid at the time of Khaibar war. He bought a gold necklace which contain jewels, with a dinar which was made of gold too. The Prophet -peace and prayer of Allah be upon him- said, commenting his case,
لاَ تُبَاعُ حَتَّى تُفَصَّلَ
“Such necklace should not be sold until the non-gold parts being separated from the gold.” (HR. Muslim no.4160).
When gold was exchanged with gold, the weight must be identical, although the carat quality was different, and there should be no additional stuff in one of the gold part although it was not made of gold too. If the additional stuff was made of gold, then the usury due to addition in one part of the commodity (fadhl) occurred. Whereas if the addition was not made of gold, such exchange was still unlawful because it was considered as a mean that could lead to the already mentioned usury (fadhl).
In this case of paint, there was an exchange of money, that is the money of thebuyer was exchanged with the money inside of the paint can, and the addition came in the form of paint and it’s can. The money in the buyer’s hand, and inside the paint can, was a usury commodity. Hence, it was evident that in this case, there was an exchange of usury commodity in which one of it got additional stuff which was not similar to the exchanged commodity.
The second opinion detailed the ruling regarding this case by considering the value of the money lied inside the can. If the value was insignificant, or it was little according to common people’s perception, then such practice was alright. For example, the money prize inside the can was only IDR 1000, or IDR 500, whereas the paint plus it’s can costed the buyer IDR 100.000. In such case, the little amount of money prize would not be the target and wishes of the buyer, thus the real transaction was the exchange between the buyer’s money and the house paint sold by the seller. And the money prize inside of the paint can was merely an additional stuff which wasn’t targeted by the transaction. The reason for this second opinion was that the past time scholars also tolerated an insignificant addition in the transaction of ‘mudd ajwah wa dirham’.
Conclusion:
The strongest of the two opinions is the second one, which detailed the amount of the money prize. (Rearranged from the source: “Al Muamalah al Maliah al Muashirah”, page 37)
Author: Ust. Aris Munandar, S.S., M.PI.
Article of www.syaria.com
