First, the legal standpoint regarding insurance including life is concerned only with the validity of the contract which is an independent and self-existent one. In consequence, His saying : {O ye who believe! Fulfill (all) obligations} (5:1) applies to this contract which is not considered a form of deceit since both parties know exactly what is incumbent on them. As for the companies’ unawareness of what it is gaining out of a life insurance, or the insured’s ignorance of the amount of money he is paying throughout his lifetime; such nescience is forgiven. Evidences of dependence on chance or contingency do not include the forgiven ignorance of the reasonable people in these business transactions which represent an economic need amidst the prevailing conjuncture in people’s public and private life.

Second, these contracts do not involve usury in principle. Even when companies, in some cases and mainly when insurance contracts are revoked, repay customers the money with a premium; this premium does not fall under the wrong and unlawful contractual usury.

Third, it is weird, if not absurd, to say that life insurance represents a defiance of Allah, the most Exalted, because the terms of such contracts do not suggest in any way that the insurer will keep the life of the insured; it is only about paying his family the prescribed and agreed upon sum of money upon his death.

ِ Do you see the act of buying certain merchandises at a specified period of time in order to put them back on sale when their prices go up as monopoly? And do you define monopoly as the control of all kinds of goods and services or is it exclusive to a specific type of products?

If the offered goods come under the category the monopoly of which is prohibited, and if they prove to be completely missing from markets so that by keeping them from distribution people will be inflicted with severe harm and damage; in this case, their monopoly would be deemed unlawful.

Speaking of the unlawfulness of monopoly, it involves all the needs that are vital for people’s public and private lives, not to mention that it is not restricted to certain products, as it is widely believed amongst jurists.

The first contractor is not allowed to hire another contractor in order to perform the job he had been hired to fulfill for less pay unless he had started the work and achieved a little or a great part of it.

Deceiving is the act of misleading somebody by hiding the truth deliberately, even if concealment involved only a small part of the supreme truth. As a matter of fact, illustrations on deception are numerous. Mixing the good with the bad or covering the unwanted with the wanted such as mingling water with yogurt is actually an act of cheating. Making sure to give a good impression by showing the good quality that has no existence in reality like sprinkling water on vegetables in order to delude people and make them think that these vegetables are fresh; this is also a deception. Another unquestionable dishonest practice is the selling of one product on the basis that it is another one such as covering iron with thin layer of gold or silver leaf to lead people into the false belief that they are actually gold and silver. The last example I’ll bring to notice is the reliance of the purchaser on the seller. If the buyer trusts the vendor to the extent that he does not feel any need to check the product he is buying and the vendor abstains from calling the buyer’s attention to the apparent flaws of the given product ( flaws that he did not repair or hide ) that is if the person was actually duped into thinking that he is buying a flawless good; in this case, the legal opinion regards the seller’s concealment as a deceit. Accordingly, in case of manipulating the specifications related to certain merchandises without showing any sign of changes while preserving the favored label that shows the specifications of their original or essential state; the selling is considered an unlawful treachery even if the price was reduced.

The tolerated inequity that does not engender the right of the wronged to opt for revoking the contract is the kind of inequity excused by customs and practice. Traditionally, such inequity was never scrutinized or examined.

It is not unlawful in principle unless there was another binding consideration, which might vary in accordance with the variation of situations, or emergent considerations.

ٌStock market deals and transactions must be studied thoroughly to learn about their detailed particularities so that one can take a clear and precise decision in this respect. Nonetheless, all the general and private conditions of sale must be taken into consideration because dealing in stock market must observe like any other sale operation, legal conditions and restrictions.

ٌIf it was not something weighed and measured and if it was not a loan in the form of a sale; then it is lawful.

Yes he is allowed if the contract stipulates that the purchaser can be the agent himself. The restrictions that must be complied with are actually those set by the owner of the money in the sale process, exactly as if the buyer was a different person.

ِIn selling and buying transactions, is it legally permissible to stipulate a fine in case one party fails to settle regular payments on time? Take for example the case of buying a given good at a specific price on the condition that receipt will be in a month or so; is it lawful to stipulate that the buyer will be charged with a fine if he fails to respect the agreed upon date?

ٌSuch stipulation is deemed unlawful because a fine in case of any delay is like asking for borrowing charge or asking for a payment for money use which is, indeed, a kind of usury.

ِ What is the legal standpoint as regards the trade in cigarettes, in amusement and entertaining machines, as well as in the devices that can have different lawful or unlawful uses such as videos, satellites, musical instruments, etc­? And is it up to the vendor, to the purchaser or to common norms or practice to define the product’s purpose of use?

In order to ensure the lawfulness of this trade, the traded product must be lawful so that it can serve lawful purposes and can be used in lawful fields. It is not interdicted to trade in what serves lawful as well as unlawful purposes if it was not stipulated in the selling contract that the sold product will be employed in unlawful norms or practices. The seller, moreover, is not entitled to stipulate the product’s mode of norms or practice taking into consideration the privacy of the sale if the latter was lawful. In the light of this, it is permissible to sell the said devices or machines if they are equally employed in lawful or unlawful utilizations according to their nature in the common norms or practice. However, the trade in these devices becomes unlawful if they are, mostly, used in unlawful purposes or if they are known to be destined for misleading buyers, for in such case, benefiting from these devices in lawful uses becomes the same as their absence. As concerns the question of smoking which we deem unlawful, we find that trading in cigarettes is also unlawful because smoking has no lawful outcome or benefit. This is what we believe as regards this particular issue; but it is very likely that the seeker of the authoritative opinion might refers to another jurist who might have a totally different opinion than ours in this respect.

The use of such products under these conditions is unlawful if it led to any undesirable prospective damage; and even if this use did not have such effect, the notice of the buyer must be brought to such fact because the latter has the right to cancel the contract of the sale if he discovers the situation of the sold product later on rather than at the time of the sale.

ٌThe most important factor in this process lies in the validity of the sale provided that it is not stipulated that the buyer in the first sale should sell the product back to the first owner at a lower price. This is what is actually mentioned in the tradition of Imam Mussa Bin Ja’far (a.s.) (reported by his brother ®Ali Bin Ja’far): I asked him about a person who sold his garment with ten dirhams for a given period of time and then bought it back with five dirhams. Is this lawful? He said: if this was not stipulated and both parties were in accord, then it is all right.

ٌThere is no legal problem in such doing if it was not something weighed and measured; and even when it is, it is not wrong to sell it at the price it was bought with. Furthermore, it is permitted to sell these goods at a higher price as it seems; however, the most preferable thing to do in this case is to remain on the safe side by refraining from such sale as a form of precaution.

Yes, it is lawful provided that these women are not used as sex objects

PARTIII