Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Blessing of the Sale

Narrated Hakim bin Hizam that the Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “The buyer and the seller have the option to cancel or to confirm the deal as long as they have not parted, or till they part, and if they spoke the truth and told each other the defects of the things, then blessings would be in their deal, and if they hid something and told lies, the blessing of the deal would be lost.” [The Book of Sales: Sahih Bukhari]

Allah has enjoined truthfulness and honesty, and He has forbidden lies and deceit. The matters which should be known and revealed to people should not be concealed. A sale transacted without complete honesty will not be blessed for the dishonest party.

What usually makes people dishonest is greed or the fear of loss. That makes them either hide a defect in the product that they should inform the client about, or they lie to increase the selling price. Whereas the fact of the matter is that the ‘rizq’/sustenance that Allah has determined for each and every one of us will reach us regardless of whether we adopt halal means to earn it or haram means.

If a Muslim has true faith in pre-destined rizq, it gives them the strength to avoid adopting haram means to earn money, as they see the pointlessness of it. Rizq is not just a person’s income but all that comes to them. When the blessing is lifted from the sale then the seller may have earned Rs 800 extra dishonestly, but then have had a minor accident and ended up having to spend the Rs 800 on medical care. So they ended up with no money that Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) had not written for them, and instead also accumulated some sin for their dishonesty.

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