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Shaykh Saalih al-Fawzan on cards such as discount cards, bonus cards and reward cards,
Question:
Some of the businesses possess cards which are given to the customers and when purchasing, points are added for you according to the amount of items you bought. Then later, those points will eventually be replaced with other items from them and with the (discount) card you will be able to get products on a discount. (So what is the ruling on this?)
Answer:
All of this is from the acts of gambling and it is not permissible,. If you are in need of a merchandise, then go to the market and buy it and leave off these… (word unclear) competitions and prizes. Abandon it because it is a form of gambling. And if it makes you buy from them and not from other than them, it will divert the people from the other stores, (and) so it will harm the people. ‘The Prophet, alayhi as-salaatu was-salaam, forbade the caravans which are carrying merchandise to be met on the way to the market, and forbade that a person in the city should make a deal on behalf of a villager on commission’. (This is) in order that the benefit be general for everyone in the market and so no one becomes exempted from the other. While (in the case mentioned in the question), you are giving out prizes so that you can draw the people towards you and to prevent the rest of the people (from buying from you). Also, this wealth that is being taken by the customer, it is not permissible for him because it is not in return of anything. (Rather) it is (actually) in return for this card which he (i.e. the owner) intends by it to draw the people towards his store and in order to harm the rest of the people, (One should ponder upon the hadeeth:) ‘There is no harm that should be done to yourself nor to others’. (Therefore), this is not permissible, na’am.
Shaikh Sulaymaan ar-Ruhayli (may Allah preserve him) said:
“It is what is called a bonus card. It is a free card, which is issued to the customer in order to benefit from it. The origin of these cards is that it is permissible because in reality it is a discount. Do you not see, O my brothers, that a pharmacy announces a discount [at times]? It announces a discount on prices for the customers in order for the people to purchase from it. The discount card, which a person does not give something in exchange for it, is a type from the types of discounts. However, it is not a discount that is general for the people; rather, it is a discount for this [specific] customer. It is not a compensation, it is a donation from the company to be benefited from. These cards are permissible as the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Verdicts which is associated with the Council of Senior Scholars has passed a verdict regarding that. This is because it is a donation, which does not have any prohibition in it. So upon [this], bonus cards, which are given to the customers as gifts, free of charge, are permissible. It is permissible for a person to use them however he wishes” .
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Translated by
Faisal Ibn Abdul Qaadir Ibn Hassan
Abu Sulaymaan
Question:
Is it safe to conclude that it is permissible only if they don’t charge the customers for these cards?
Answer:
From what Shaikh Sulaymaan ar-Ruhayli mentioned in a longer video discussing this is that the cards that cost money are haram and there is the Fatawa of the Lajnah and Shaikh Bin Baz and others specific on those cards that have a yearly fee. As for those that are free, then inshallah it is permissible as the Shaikh explained.
Answered by
Faisal Ibn Abdul Qaadir Ibn Hassan
Abu Sulaymaan
