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Insurance, medical aid and using banks in Western countries

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Muftionline.co.za

Q:

1. Are all forms of insurance haraam in the west? If a person doesn’t have car insurance in a western country and they have an accident, they have to pay $10,000 to cover the costs of not only their own vehicle but the other vehicle if it is their fault? Where can a Muslim who doesn’t have insurance, get all that money from?

2. Is medical/dental insurance haraam in the west? There are Muslims in the west that live with their elderly parents and they always have to go to hospital and if they didn’t have medical insurance, they would have to pay so much thousands of dollars of money that they simply wouldn’t have it. Where would they go to get their medical treatment. Would they do nothing?

3. Many people say that when you earn money in the west and go to banks to withdraw that money, that money is interest money which the bank runs on so you can’t do anything?

Bismillaah

A:

1. Normally you are required to pay according to your means. If you can prove to them that you can only pay 10 dollars a month then they cannot take more than that from you.

2. In the countries that we know of, we don’t know of people going through these types of difficulties.

3. Our ulama have explained that to use the bank only for business reasons or for safekeeping is permissible. To take any benefit or any form of interest is haraam.

And Allah Ta’ala (الله تعالى) knows best.

Answered by:

Mufti Ebrahim Salejee (Isipingo Beach)

This answer was collected from MuftiOnline.co.za, where the questions have been answered by Mufti Zakaria Makada (Hafizahullah), who is currently a senior lecturer in the science of Hadith and Fiqh at Madrasah Ta’leemuddeen, Isipingo Beach, South Africa.

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