An employee being involved in a usurious contract before its final stage

19-4-2006 | IslamWeb

Question:

I work in a car dealership as a sales manager. Part of my duties is to give the customer a range on their payments if they were to purchase a vehicle. This entails entering an interest rate into a computer program to calculate a potential payment. If the range is acceptable I write a contract on the price of the car I sell. And I usually write consumer desires payments in this range, and I mention the range. The deal goes for there to the finance office which send is to the back. When the interest rate is sent back to the finance manager he brings the customer to his office and negotiates with him/her on the interest rate. Then they draft the final contract with includes the rate and such. I am not involved in this final stage. I give a range. Is this Haraam? Is giving my opinion on the range of payment unlawful, even though I do not draft a contract with interest rates or send the application to the bank?
Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.

 

Knowing that the buyer will pay the price of the car through a bank which deals with Ribaa (interest and/ or usury) and negotiating with him on the interest rate, is a clear help in the process of Riba, and Allaah prohibited this as He Says (what means): {… do not help one another in sin and transgression.}[Quran 5:2]. The prohibition is not restricted to writing the contract of Riba or being one of the witnesses in the contract rather any kind of help in the process in any form is forbidden.

When interpreting the saying of the Prophet sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allaah exalt his mention ): "Allaah has cursed the one who consumes Ribaa (i.e. usury or interest), the one who gives it to others, the one who writes it down and the one who witnesses it". He said: "All of them are equal in sin." [Muslim], An-Nawawi may Allaah have mercy upon him said: "This is evidence that it is forbidden to help in any evil." 

Allaah Knows best.

 

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