Salaam Alaikum; Please help me on this issue pertaining to interest earned on capital amount in a bank account or any financial Investment Scheme. Particularly, I wish to understand how I may treat such amounts. Having deposited say $100,000.00 into an account for 1 month in a bank which offers 18% interest per annum means that within a month, I am able to receive $1,500.00. Clearly withdrawal of this money for use will be haram. However another scenario may arise whereby the same bank might charge me interest for services it may render to me. Lets say this commission amounts to $650.00; the transactions will thus appear like this: DR CR Bal 01/01/2010 10000 10000 31/01/2010 Int. 500 10500 01/02/2010 Withdr 5000 5500 01/02/2010 Charge 250 5250 Which amount can I use for that charge; the $500 or $250, implying am I going to use the intertest to pay for the bank charge or not? Please kindly give a reply as soon as possible. Thank you
Answer:
(Fatwa: 353/252/L=1431)
The services which bank provides you by taking charge, if you get its benefit then using the amount of interest for this charge is unlawful, because in this case it would be like using interest for oneself, while using interest amount for oneself is not lawful.
Allah (Subhana Wa Ta’ala) knows Best
Darul Ifta,
Darul Uloom Deoband