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I have a jewellery store and some of my relatives or friends come to me to buy gold, and they ask me to let them take the gold and they will give me the money a day or two after that. I am afraid that if I tell them that this is haraam, this will lead to breaking of the ties of kinship.
Praise be to Allah.
It is not permissible to sell gold for money unless the gold and the money are handed over in the same sitting. This is what has been stated by the fuqaha’. This is called taqaabud (a reciprocal taking possession of commodity and its monetary equivalent by buyer and seller respectively), in which the buyer takes the gold, and the seller takes the money (in the same sitting). It is not permissible to sell gold if there is no taqaabud. See question no. 65919 .
What you have to do is to explain this to those who buy from you, and what a Muslim has to do is to listen and obey whatever Allaah and His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) have commanded. You are not doing this because you do not trust them, for example, rather you are doing it in order to follow the sharee’ah. You should explain this in a kind and gentle manner.
Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) was asked:
What is the ruling on giving gold before receiving the money for it, if it is given to a relative because of the fear of severing the ties of kinship and I am aware that he will pay for it even if that is after some time?
He replied:
You should be aware of the general principle that it is not permissible to sell gold for money at all unless the price is paid in full immediately. It makes no difference if the customer is a relative or a stranger, because the religion of Allaah does not favour one at the expense of the other. If your relative gets angry with you for obeying Allaah, then let him get angry, for he is the wrongdoer and sinner who wants you to disobey Allaah, and in fact you have honoured him by preventing him from entering into a kind of transaction with you that is haraam. If he gets angry or cuts off ties with you for this reason, then he is the sinner and there is no sin on you.
Fiqh wa Fatwa al-Buyoo’, compiled by Ashraf ‘Abd al-Maqsood, p. 389.