Ruling on Contact Concluded between a Dentist and a non-Islamic Insurance Company

Answer:

Praise be to Allah, prayer and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah Shari`ah scholars drew a distinction between commercial insurance and Islamic takaful insurance. Commercial insurance is forbidden according to the majority of Muslim jurists (fuqaha) and jurisprudence assemblies because it is a contract based on gambling and betting. Allah said: “O YOU who have attained to faith! Intoxicants, and games of chance, and idolatrous practices, and the divining of the future are but a loathsome evil of Satan’s doing: shun it, then, so that you might attain to a happy state!..”{Al-Ma`idah/90}. Islamic cooperative insurance based on the principle of interdependence(takaful) ,cooperation and donation is valid from the stand point of Shari`ah . Allah said: “Help one another to righteousness and piety; do not help one another to sin and enmity.”{Al-Ma`idah/2}. This view is adopted by the majority of jurisprudence assemblies and contemporary Iftaa` departments. Although whoever aids in a commercial insurance contract is religiously sinful , the dentist is not since his relation with the insurance companies is a royalty or (Jo`alah)in Arabic .Therefore, he is allowed to make a contract whereby they agree to bring him patients for a certain amount of money that he pays to them. However, it would be better to simply deal with takaful insurance companies. And Allah knows best.