Bismillah.

The results of the poll are in! And it’s … it’s …

It’s a four-way tie.

The winners are:

• Arabic Language
• Islamic Finance
• Uloom-ul-Qur’an
• Tafseer of Juz ‘Amma

I was really hoping for a clear-cut winner … but insha’Allah khayr. I spent a while thinking about it, taking shura from different people, looking at different factors (such as what information I can easily access and benefit from), and here’s what I decided:

Alhamdulillah, all praise and thanks is due to Allah, who has made Ilm Fruits alhamdulillah a very successful blog. Our recent post on salah questions (and their answers) got a lot of questions (masha’Allah alhamdulillah), so we’re going to take it a step further and roll out … a series.

Insha’Allah, starting April 6th (Monday), for the month of April, we’re going to have a series on a single topic. What does this mean?

As you know, we cannot just accept a hadith from anyone–this is our deen! If anyone could just say what they wanted, we would have nothing left of the true, pure message of Allah.

The scholars have analyzed the biographies of every narrator of hadith. They compile information on when he was born, and where, his kunya, his tribe, who he met, what his character was, what other people narrated about him … piles and piles of information.

The Prophet (salallahu alayhi wa sallam) used to make a du’a:

اللّهُمَّ إنِّي أعُوذُبِكَ مِن العَجزِ وَ الكَسلٍ

Why is this du’a important? For two reasons:

• Laziness is an attribute of munafiqeen. If this wasn’t bad enough, being lazy leads to procrastination, which leads to its own set of problems.
• It’s common these days for people to say “I can’t do it.” Like “I can’t pray at work,” or “I can’t achieve X.” The Prophet (salallahu alayhi wa sallam) would say a’oothubillah to that kind of talk. Think about it!

Action Plan:

Edit: Jazakumullahu khayran to everybody who provided feedback. It seems like there’s a lot of demand for this kind of thing. Insha’Allah we’ll see more posts like this in the future.

Bismillah.

Salah. We cannot emphasize the importance of salah–the dividing line of Islam and Kufr. The first thing asked about on the Day of Judgment. The last thing the Messenger of Allah mentioned before he passed away.

Bismillah.

One of the types of transactions that’s very common today is a down-deposit transaction. This happens all the time with somewhat large purchases, like wedding cakes, or cars.

Say your sister is getting married. You go to the bakery to locate a nice cake; passing by towers of icing, you locate one that doesn’t seem too unhealthy.

“That one?” the shopkeeper says. “That one is $200. There’s a non-refundable deposit of $50 on it.” Non-refundable–if you pay for it, walk out, change your mind, and cancel, then that money is lost.

Is futures trading halal or haram? Futures trading isn’t just for investors–even day-to-day transactions like buying and selling fruit, furniture, or funky gadgets can take the same ruling!

So is it halal? Or haram?

What exactly are futures? Futures trading generally apply to stocks, indexes, etc. Say you’re trading currencies (such as the Japanese Yen). Normal trading is buying high and selling low; futures trading is “I’ll sell you 1000 Yen at this price, two months from today, and you pay me then.” An option to buy later at a specific price guaranteed now, which you pay for later.

Edit: It’s makrooh, NOT haram, to sell something when you’re 50%+ sure it’ll be used for haram.

In Islamic finance, permissibility to sell something is tempered by the certainty principle–that is, how certain are you that this thing you’re selling will be used properly?

Say you sell grapes in a specialty grape-only store. A few types of customers come in:

• A young woman comes in with her little boy and buys some grapes; you see her feeding him the grapes as soon as the cashier scans it through. Is it permissible to sell her grapes? Absolutely. It’s halal.

One of the ways in which Islamic finance differs greatly from conventional law is in the debt-for-debt transaction. In Islamic finance, a debt-for-debt transaction is not allowed.

And this is one of the big factors in the current economic depression–people selling a debt for a debt for a debt for … one report says that America is built on debt seven times over! The guy at the bottom finally asks for his commodity, and all the people in the chain realize there was nothing there at all; it’s all debt on debt.

In Islamic Finance, the shari’ah differentiates between two types of commodities (this is just one differentiation): specific, and non-specific.

Specific: “I’ll sell you this Saheeh Bukhari printed in 2004 by Dar-us-Salaam that I’m holding in my hand.”

Non-Specific: “I’ll sell you a copy of Saheeh Bukhari printed in 2004 by Dar-us-Salam.”

So if you own some large amount of inventory, or you sell in volume, or you have a bookstore, etc. you are probably selling non-specific items. Like those apples above. If you’re using Craig’s List, or eBay, you’re likely selling specific items (unless you’re bulk-selling).