Light Upon Light Blog

Please read the update at the end as some of my assumptions are incorrect in this article.

Update - November 2008 - In this fatwa on paying on installments It is permissible to charge more for installments than for a cash price. (See all conditions in the fatwa).

What follows is the original article written in August 2008

A lot of car companies (auto dealers) are offering 0% interest on new cars. However, beware, this is not really 0% in a lot of the cases. Some Muslims are being tricked into this “0%” which is not really interest free.

Here is how you can find out whether this is a real 0% or not.

Tell the dealer you want to buy a car for cash. Say a Toyota Camra at $35,000.
Then the dealer will say the total price including tax, delivery, and so on, is $37,221 (for example).

Then tell the dealer you want to pay it over 2 years, at 0% interest.
Suddenly you will see the price jumps up by a couple thousand dollars to $39441 or something. How did this happen?

Oh because you don’t get the “cash discount” which is like $3000. So if they offer a “cash discount”, that means you are paying interest to finance it, and don’t do it.

However, you can convince the dealers to give you 0% financing, you just have to talk to them and see what cars they have, maybe its left over from last years stock and not sold yet, so they will be willing to give it to you.

Don’t pay a penny extra for that financing, and it will be halal, inshaAllah. Remember, interest is evil. However, it is permissible to agree to pay more for a car in order to pay on installments. Read the updates below. Keep in mind that you have to be very careful what is in the contract. Signing a contract with interest is cursed with Allah. Also realize that just because it doesn’t use the word “interest” does not mean its halal. Paying fees for late payment is not permissible in Islam

Update Nov 13, 2008
It seems that the issue is more complicated than I thought. Here is some more details. It seems it is permissible to agree to pay more for the item as long as the debt doesnt grow. There are some other conditions that must be met too, see below:

According to Dr. Monzer in this Islamonline live fatwa session (Question by Adham from Canada on Ask a Scholar) he says

On the other hand, buying at a higher price with zero interest is permissible because the increment is part of a price it is not an increase in a debt. Any object usually has a higher-than-cash price when payment is deferred, this is ok.

In this other fatwa Dr. Monzer says

“Accordingly, while it is permissible to make a credit sale contract at a higher price than the price one would have accepted for a cash sale. You may not make the sale at a cash price and then add the would be price differential to the amount of debt that resulted from the sale, because this is an increment in a debt, not the price of an item.

By the same token, a sale contract must be definite. It cannot be such that the price is either 100 if you the purchaser pay within 3 days and 110 if she pays in 60 day. This is called “two sales in one” that is clearly prohibited by the Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him).” ”

Also, see a more cautious response from Monzer Kahf on Leasing…

From IslamToday an interesting scenario relating to other products. they say

Selling things on installment is permissible as long as the seller owns the merchandise that he intends to sell in that way. The seller and buyer may reach an agreement among themselves on the price and the method of settlement. Usually, the amount of selling by installments is higher than that of an immediate cash payment.

As long as it is the actual owner or purchaser of the goods who will sell them to his customers on credit installments, then it is lawful.

and

Additional charges may not be imposed upon failure to pay in a timely manner.

(also same thing stated here)

Add to be fair, Islamweb.net states it is not allowed to decrease price if payment is early as this resembles riba.. However IslamQA in “PAYING IN INSTALLMENTS” states this is okay as long as it wasn’t agreed upon ahead of time (and with a few other conditions) and in this other fatwa “waiving part of the debt” it explains why there is difference of opinion on this topic.

but keep in mind..

They replied:

It is haraam for the Muslim to borrow gold, silver or money from someone on the basis that he will pay back more than he borrowed, whether the lender is a bank or anyone else, because that is riba, which is one of the worst of major sins. Any bank that deals in such transactions is a riba-based bank.

Fataawa Islamiyyah, 2/412

As they say, the devil is in the details

Tags: financing, interest, riba

Bismillah

Narrated ‘Aisha, our Mother, and the Wife of the Beloved of Allah:

Allah’s Apostles used to accept gifts and used to give something in return. (Sahih Bukhari)

The messenger of Allah, Sallahu alaiyhi wa salam, always used to accept gifts. And he used to return kindness with kindness. He did not think it was below him to accept a gift, no matter how little it was. And he also used to smile and accept it generously.

Whenever a piece of meat was offered to him, for example, he would ask, is this charity (sadaqa), or is this a gift?

If it was a gift, he would thank the person, and invite others to share in the blessing and eat with him, whereas if it was a charity, he would invite others to eat from it, but would not take any for himself.

Whenever a meal was brought to Allah’s Apostle, he would ask whether it was a gift or Sadaqa (something given in charity). If he was told that it was Sadaqa, he would tell his companions to eat it, but if it was a gift, he would hurry to share it with them. (Sahih Muslim)

It is from his mercy that he always accepted gifts. It feels good that when you give someone a gift, that they accept it from their heart. Sometimes in our cultures we grow up thinking its righteous to reject a gift. In fact this is not true, and it hurts the giver when you do not accept.

When someone gives you a gift, what should you do?
You should try to give them a gift back, and if you cannot, then you should pray for them and ask for Allah to give them goodness.

Supporting Hadith

• Prophet accepted a gift of drink and shared it (Sahih Muslim)
• Prophet accepted a gift of some gold rings and gave it to his grand daughter (Sunan of Abu Dawud)
• The muhajireen (ones who migrated to Makkah and were mostly poor) returned the gift that the ansar (the local people of Medina) when they were wealthy and could afford it (Sahih Muslim)
• The ruler of Aila gave a gift of a white Mule to the Prophet, and he in return gave a gift of a cloak (Sahih Muslim)
• The Prophet would not reject the gift of Perfume (Bukhari)
• Prophet accepted the gift of some food but did not eat the parts that he did not like (Bukhari)

Let us add some joy to this world, and start accepting gifts and giving gifts in return.

It really hurts.. that your brother, whom prays at the same mosque as you.. He was used, he was played, he was set up, and now he is in trouble.. He is crying, he is lonely, it has been 600 days now in solitary confinement. That is a very traumatic thing to go through. In today’s Toronto Star newspaper they talked about how one of the “suspects” who was released described how his personality has changed and how he has a huge temper and he blanks out and cannot sleep at night, and so on…

You know maybe Allah will ask us about those in Palestine, Kosovo, and so on. But Allah Will DEFINATELY ask us about what we did in this case, when our own NEIGHBOURS were used and locked up for no good.. Infact if you don’t care enough to watch this video that I am sending below, I hope that you will be the next one who gets arrested and nobody will care about you either.

Read this comment by Helen - March 28, 2008 posted on this blog

Assalama Aleikum brothers and sisters.I am Zakarias mother one of the Accused innocent which he still in solidary confinement may Allah give him patient and protect him.He is in Solidary confinement for almost two years .You all of you should know how I feel is my son and I Love him mor than anything.I cry for him every day and I pray for the people which they sold themselves for the money to repend and to do whatever it takes for all the accuse to come out.Still is not too late for them to repent and Allah subhanaa o Taala will accept there repentance inshallah.I am a convert to Islam and I believe that this religion is base in the truth and patience.I never hate anybody in my Life even I have been heart from people but always I pray for them to become straight and this is what I teach my kids also.So please if you people who hurt our sons still you have any feelings left as a real Muslims speak up the truth and feel with us as the families of the accused.Feel also what it feels when suppose you own something and someone out of nowhere comes and take it for you.Its Kind of ownership.Well this is what I feel from my son and I want him back.So please repent and speak up the truth.

Some of your Canadian brothers are still in jail! According to a Toronto Star article written by one of the released “suspects”, their lives have been ruined, they have a hard time controlling their anger, they are blanking out, and so on… It’s very sad how we, the Canadian public, were manipulated and our brothers were baited and used as pawns, similar to how Dilawar was used..

Contact information for David Weingarten:  Unfair.Dealing@Gmail.com

The video is also located at youtube (http://youtube.com/user/UnfairDealing):

• Unfair Dealing - Part 1
• Unfair Dealing - Part 2
• Unfair Dealing - Part 3
• Unfair Dealing - Part 4
• Unfair Dealing - Part 5
• Unfair Dealing - Part 6

Please spread this information, the public needs to know what is going on.

Captive In Canada

Sign this “End Solitary Confinement“

I never met you but I love you for the sake of Allah.

Dry the tears of yours face, they can hurt you no longer. You are now in flowing rivers and palaces in the forgiveness of your Lord. It was only 5 days of pain, but now you are the winner.

To your family, I give you glad tidings, that it was only 5 days he suffered, but now he is in true happiness. Don’t be sad, but be happy, Allah chose to take his soul and he will be of those without any reckoning, insha-Allah.

Dilawar was an innocent taxi driver who was handed over to the Americans on suspicion of terrorism but never received a trial but instead died while being interrogated by American Troops. He left behind a father, brother, wife, and one daughter. I learned about him from this Oscar winning documentary that I watched called “Taxi to the Dark Side (full video)” (1 hour 20 minutes long). This video shows how from the very highest levels of U.S. government they allowed the torture to take place. The frontline troops are merely pawns in the big game of power and control that the American elite are playing. The troops are very much replaceable, and they are the very ones who were punished for what happened. However, the ones who signed the orders for the torture, they were not held to account for their war crimes.

Tim Golden writes about Dilawar here: In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghans Deaths, and he is interviewed in the movie as well.

Allah says in Surah Rahman,

41: The Mujrimun (polytheists, criminals, sinners, etc.) will be known by their marks (black faces), and they will be seized by their forelocks and their feet.
42: Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny?
43: This is Hell which the Mujrimun (polytheists, criminals, sinners, etc.) denied.
44: They will go between it (Hell) and the boiling hot water!
45: Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny?
46: But for him who [the true believer of Islamic Monotheism who performs all the duties ordained by Allah and His Messenger Muhammad SAW , and keeps away (abstain) from all kinds of sin and evil deeds prohibited in Islam and] fears the standing before his Lord, there will be two Gardens (i.e. in Paradise).

Salam alaykum ya shaheed

Often times when we read the Qur’an we just pass over some of it without thinking twice. When you get to a certain stage in your life, for example when your kids are getting older and you are thinking of which school to put them in, and so on, you don’t pass over that same ayah so easily.

Then when she delivered her [child Maryam (Mary)], she said: “O my Lord! I have delivered a female child,” - and Allah knew better what she delivered, - “And the male is not like the female, and I have named her Maryam (Mary), and I seek refuge with You (Allah) for her and for her offspring from Shaitan (Satan), the outcast.” (3:36)

This is the mother of Maryam alaihis salam making dua for her daughter to be protected by Shaytan.. and SubhanAllah Allah accepted it. Maybe Allah will also accept this dua if we similarly make it. NOT just for our children but for their children too!

So her Lord (Allah) accepted her with goodly acceptance. He made her grow in a good manner and put her under the care of Zakariya (Zachariya). Every time he entered Al-Mihrab to (visit) her , he found her supplied with sustenance. He said: “O Maryam (Mary)! From where have you got this?” She said, “This is from Allah.” Verily, Allah provides sustenance to whom He wills, without limit.” (3:37)

and the du’a of Ibrahim

“O our Lord! I have made some of my offspring to dwell in an uncultivable valley by Your Sacred House (the Ka’bah at Makkah); in order, O our Lord, that they may perform As-Salat (Iqamat-as-Salat), so fill some hearts among men with love towards them, and (O Allah) provide them with fruits so that they may give thanks. (14:37)

How often do we focus on worldly needs for our children, we pray for them to have success in school, in life, and so on, but imagine Ibrahim, the Prophet, alaihis salam, making a dua for his children to establish salah.

References: 25 duas immortalized in the Quran by Muhammad Alshareef, Eman Rush Publications

Bismillah. This is a very hot topic and it seems that most people have a lot of “logical” reasons why we should pirate Islamic content. Firstly I will tell you that I agree that in most cases in an ideal world it would be great if all this material was free, but lets look at this not from our own opinions and desires, but from what Allah Subhanahu wa taAla and His Messenger (alaihis salam) have decreed in this matter. Obviously there was no issue of “copyright” back at the time of revelation, but we can look at what the scholars have to say. Fiqh is not as easy as 123 tada!

You cannot become a Mufti on the weekend. Fiqh is a complicated process that involves looking at proofs, finding out if a specific rule overrides a general rule, looking at exceptions, understanding the language of the sources, and so on.

When Allah and his Messenger rule something, it is not for the believers to have any choice in the matter

And it behoves not a believing man and a believing woman that they should have any choice in their matter when Allah and His Apostle have decided a matter; and whoever disobeys Allah and His Apostle, he surely strays off a manifest straying. (Quran Trans, Shakir)

Most of the responses I usually get on this topic are “logical” answers, stuff like “it hurts the dawah”, and “we have to spread the deen”, and stuff like that. But In reality, are we following Islam, or our own hawa (desires)?
We have to look at the matter in question and see what scholars have said about it.

In regard to the matter of putting up Muhammad Alshareef’s copyrighted material (or Anwar Al-Awlaki, or Khalid Yasin for that matter) we have to keep in mind that

1. In a lot of cases, they do not have any other income. They spend a lot of time and effort propogating the deen of Allah full time, and this does not necessarily pay the bills. I personally talked to Yusuf Estes and told him I disagreed with sheikhs making it copyright, and he told me.. “what can they do? they need money to pay the bills for their wife and kids’. As far as I understand, he encourages the free spreading of knowledge and to not charge fees for teaching the deen, but does not criticize those that do.

Infact we live in such a pathetic world that most of these sheikhs, nobody provides them financial assistance for their hard work of inheriting the task of the messengers and awliya of Allah. SubhanAllah.. back in the day AlMaghrib (the OLD AlMaghrib not AlMaghrib Institute today) used to pay a stipend of money to everyone who used to study Islam and teach it, to encourage people to become scholars.

They dont have the luxury of being a so-called computer scientist like me, or a doctor like you, and having a comfortable living. We dont even know what difficulties their family has to go through to get the deen to us

Yet we take away what little funds they have. we have to admit that by making these lectures freely available online, it definately means a lot less people will buy the audio cds because they KNOW they can find it online

So we should really try to help them by directing people to purchase such audio CDs and videos.

And in regard to hurting the dawah by not putting up such audios, we can safely say that there is still another 36+ gigabytes of stuff on other sites that is not copyright that others can benefit from. In that regard we can say that they can always listen to the alternative. Noor Allah Productions (Ahmad Moait) also has a lecture set about the Prophets and Messengers which is freely available unlike Anwar Al-Awlakis.. so alhamdullilah we do we need to pirate the others?

Allah also says “Ya ayuhal ladhina amanoo awfoo bil Auqood” (transliteration)

5:1 O ye who believe! fulfil (all) obligations.

When we are pirating Islamic media (or any media), what we are doing is breaking our contracts..

first of all we are breaking the LEGAL contract we made for living in this country (because it is illegal)
Secondly we are breaking our contract with the speaker who made the dvd by copying their material when they specifically gave us the CD with the rule that we cannot copy it, and we agreed by purchasing the CD.

We have to fear Allah and realize that even though we wish for such material to be online for free, since we did not produce it, we have no right to distribute it in this manner without their permission.

If we really fear Allah and want the dawah to go, we should ourselves, first spend years studying islam, doing research on the topic (all this time finding a way to take care of our families), and then produce these high lectures with our time, effort, and money.

Then we can safely say to anyone, PLEASE put these up for free on your site. however since we did not go through all that, who gave us the right to use such media? infact most of us live very comfy lives and never have to go through this struggle ourselves.

We should first talk to the sheikhs directly and get permission from them, and if they allow us to use their lectures, alhamdullilah

Yusuf Estes is a good example, he allows us to use his audios and videos at NO CHARGE fe sabillilah alhamdullilah we should go ahead and use it and make lots of dua for him besides the fact that he will have much less money as a result.

If someone says to me, there is a difference of opinion in this matter, and i think software piracy is halal, i will say to them, please, find me the daleel. Our religion is based on proof. You will see most scholars have very clearly said it is haram to do such a thing even if it “benefits the ummah”. Understand this well, if you want to sell pork sandwiches to benefit the ummah, it’s not going to benefit you nor the ummah on the day of judgement.

What i mean is that in the same manner, we can never do something haram, and try to do something good with it. We can never steal money, run a lottery or a prostitute house, or any of those things, in order to do dawah.

The rule is that in Islam the means does not justify the end.
EDIT: See comments, it is not always the case that the above is true

From Islam-QA

• Copying CDs for distributing
• Downloading lectures and distributing them
• Intellectual Property Rights

From IslamOnline

• Copying CDs and Programs which are Copyright
• Is there a copyright law in Islam

Ask Imam

• The Issue of Copyright

Sunnipath

• Copyright law is binding

Actually it was not necessary for me to find references from all of the above, the several fatawa on IslamQA would have been enough (And Allah knows best), but I wanted to demonstrate how there is an overwhelming consensus/agreement on this topic.

And the last thing i can say is that I personally heard Muhammad Alshareef explain why he SELLS his cds and not gives the lectures out for free. He has some lectures online for free, and very few people (less than 1000) listened to it. However once he professionally produced it ( www.emanrush.com ) he said the production was in the thousands and thousands and so many people started listening to the lectures.. so he realized this is the best way to do it. And in the end since they put in the effort, it is up to them to decide.

If you want to discuss any of this, please do leave a comment here.

Vote for your favourite Islamic Site now

Isn’t it strange that when you search for Islam you end up with sites like submission.org which is a very deviant
site that does not conform to the teachings of Islam but rather they are a small group from among the muslims
that believe in this prophet who called himself “Rashid Khalifa” and they make a very big deal about the number 19
appearing in the Quran, and yet they also reject the sunnah of Prophet Muhammad and they still call themselves
Muslims?

When I was in University, at the start of Ramadan, they posted it on a bulletin web site that the Muslims
were starting fasting in this month called Ramadan and they said for more information on Islam see submission.org!

Incredible, but it was not surprising because it is one of the search results for Islam on Google.

How did they do it? How did they end up at the top?

Well to begin, Google uses a concept called PageRank, and to calculate how “useful” they think your page will be,
they look at the number of links to it. And then they look at how popular each one of those links is.

So what are we supposed to do about it?
Well, first of all, if you have an Islamic site or blog, LINK to other Islamic sites! That is considered
a “vote” by Google, and will increase the rank of the destination site. Also, use the correct keywords
when linking to the site. Don’t put a link that says for more Quran MP3s click here
but rather put Click here for more Quran MP3s.

Read Yusuf Estes’ article on Websites Against Islam - Don’t Promote Them AT ALL (a vote for Islamtomorrow.com)

By following these guidelines, every drop of water will result in an ocean.

Assalam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh

The following is my email I sent about 1 week after Eid 2007. As such its a bit rough and it was sent without much editing but here it is.

Eid Mubarak to each and every one of you.
I apologize for the lateness of this email, but alhamdullilah your email box won’t be full of these emails right now since I’m probably the only one sending it so late.

I wanted to send an individual email to each and every one of you, but lifestyle unfortunately does not permit me to do such a thing, which is sad indeed.

We have only 2 celebrations a year, we have our own identity and we stay away from all these batil celebrations - Halloween, Christmas, etc..
we know that a lot of them have their roots in pagan and evil celebrations but the rulers in fact took these polytheistic rituals and made them part of their deen..

We reject all such celebrations.

Even there are some Christians who refuse to celebrate birthdays, and refuse to celebrate Halloween, and even some who wont celebrate what is now known as “Christmas” because of the roots of how it started..

do some research and learn the truth. Isa alaihis salam was not born on December 25th.
see item 5 on Was Jesus really born on December 25th?

but we have to stand strong and realize that Islam is the deen of truth. And we have our own celebrations, our own EID.

Thus, it is very important, especially for those of us living here in the non Muslim countries, to make a big deal of Eid. We have to celebrate, have parties for our kids, buy something nice for our families, and make it super special and remembered.. if we don’t. we will be assimilated…..

may Allah accept all our good deeds and fasting this month, ameen

I just came back from 5 days of Itikaf (voluntary retreat for the purpose of worship)

The masjid that I was at, Masjid Al-Farooq was just recently opened (it used to be like a small house, now its a two million dollar facility (partially finished) just in time for Ramadan. The old masjid is 18 years old so far.

It was a beautiful experience. I urge all of you who have the opportunity to go, to go!
First of all, you will meet wonderful people, insha’Allah, who are more practising than yourself. You will have the opportunity to sit with them and to see them waking up for prayers and constantly reading Quran and making personal sacrifice for the sake of Allah.

You will also meet those who are not so fortunate that they can take time off for itikaf, yet they still are willing to sacrifice their sleep and come to pray at night. It is amazing and heart warming to see those who come and stay for the entire taraweeh prayer, leaving around 11pm, and then returning the next day between 3 to 5am to worship Allah, AND THEN to go to work between 8 to 10am.

Now, I was also amazed at the sheer number of people that come for Qiyam and Suhoor and Fajr during this week. It was outstanding. There was literally at least 60-100 people every night. It makes you realize that if you don’t wake up to pray, then tons of others are going to do it and replace you. There were also kind souls who brought us Somali tea everyday at taraweeh and qiyam

I also learned something I didn’t know about being in the masjid - namely one that worldly talk is not allowed.

I was also sad about a few things…

I also felt that itikaf is not really the time to be listening to the Quran, say, on your MP3 player, or iPod, but rather, it’s the time to be in active worship of Allah.

That also, Allahu Alem, it is better for you to stand up and pray at night rather than sitting at the back and reading Quran along with the imam.

Even reading the Quran in prayer is not recommended, and Ibn Uthaymeen even said it is contrary to the sunnah to hold the mushaf during prayer because it means you are fiddling and making more movements, and also because you will not be concentrating on the place of sujood (prostration).

I am taking a vacation for the sake of Allah. I took 1 week off work, and for the next days I will be performing itikaf at the masjid. This means I will be sleeping there and eating there, and inshaAllah waking up to pray qiyam ul-layl.

The feelings that go through my mind as I prepare for this. Shaytan attacks those that want to do good deeds. You start to get doubts, to wonder, why am I doing this? Can’t I do something better with my 1 week vacation, such as go for a trip with my wife, or stay home and look for a new job, or improve my technical skills, etc, etc..

Also I have concerns, will my wife be okay with the kids, doing the shopping, take care of the house, and so on… ?

Infact, the feelings that go through my heart is that this is a small glimpse of what the companions felt when they had to go for jihad. And it was even more scary, because they didn’t know what food they would eat, they didn’t even know if they would come home, or when.

And it was fardh for them to go out. The deen’s very survival necessitated such a struggle.

O you who believe! What is the matter with you, that when you are asked to march forth in the Cause of Allah (i.e. Jihad) you cling heavily to the earth? Are you pleased with the life of this world rather than the Hereafter? But little is the enjoyment of the life of this world as compared with the Hereafter. (Interpretation by Muhsin Khan)

(Quran 9:38)

A mighty test indeed. May Allah make us of those who remember the struggle of the companions and the Prophet, their sacrifice, and help us to return to the sunnah (way of the Prophet, SAllahu alaiyhi wa salam which was prescribed by Allah) and the correct understanding of the deen, ameen. May Allah make us of those who willingly give our lives and our properties in return for jannah, ameen.