QUESTION:
- Mufti saab My question is that there is an online investment in which a person will invest a certain amount of money money to large companies and then he/she will receive a certain amount of money (large profit) in an hour. Is this permissible?
- Mufti saab I’ve already asked you the question but just want to say an example In the online investment it goes like this…. if i pay them $150 then in an hour i will receive $1000 from them Is this jaaiz?
ANSWER:
Wa Alaikum As Salaam,
It is essential that you know in which company/companies, your monies are invested. It will not be permissible for you to invest your money in any company which deals in Haram products or in transactions which are considered unlawful in Islam.
Similarly, whenever you are investing your money in a company, you must agree to suffer a loss in proportion to your investment, if that particular company suffers a loss in any given transaction or deal in which your money was invested. Investment is not only about gaining profits, but it is also about bearing a loss if the company suffered a loss. Regarding the profit that you may receive, this must not be a fixed and specific amount (figure) as $1000 in the case you have mentioned. Instead, your return must carry a pro-rata profit, connected to what is actually earned by the company. So, it can be 5% or 7% or any other amount, being a percentage of what was earned by the company.
In many cases, people who do ‘online investment’ do not normally know in which companies their monies are invested. It is also very difficult to get this knowledge even if they try to find out from the agents through whom they are doing their transactions. Further to this, they are not told about losses they could possibly suffer if the particular company/companies suffer a loss in transactions where their monies were invested. Therefore, it makes one wonder if the returns (profit) received are really from investments that were actually done by a company, or whether these are fixed returns based on interest bearing transactions which are guaranteed by financial institutions and not subjected to losses.
As such, once the above matters are not clear to you, and the Islamic guidelines regarding investments are not fulfilled, you must not do online investments.
And Allah Knows best
Mufti Waseem Khan
13/10/2018