International Shia News Agency

Gifts

Shafaqna (International Shia News Agency) – The Grand Ayatollah Sistani answered some questions regarding gifts.According to Shafaqna the questions and answers are as follows:

Question 1: If a person gives me a gift from which he has not paid Khums, is it necessary for me to pay khums on it?

Answer: If a person gives a gift to a Shia Ithna Asheri, from which Khums has not been paid, one fifth of it is the liability of the donor himself, and one who gets the gift is not required to pay anything.

Question 2: A privately owned bank invited its customers to deposit money with the bank, say one thousand Dirhams that they can withdraw at any time. After some time the bank shall give a specific gift to the depositors. Is it permissible to enter into such a deal to get the gift?

Answer: Depositing money with the condition of [getting] the gift is haraam. The condition here means you make the [transaction] of depositing contingent on an undertaking given by the bank to give the gift. If it was just for the knowledge that the bank shall give the gift, it is not going to dent the permissibility of depositing and that of receiving the granted gift as halal.

Question 3: A national bank (in a Muslim country) offers a project to its clients in which a person deposits a sum of money in the order of 1,000 dirhams as a deposit which can be withdrawn at any time. It announces that after a period of time, a lottery will be drawn and the bank will grant a specific gift to the investors. Is it permissible to deposit with this intention?

Answer: Depositing with the condition of a gift is usury and therefore prohibited. By condition is meant to make the deposit with the requirement that the bank should give the gift. But the mere knowledge that the bank will grant it (gift) does not harm the permissibility of investing and the lawfulness of the granted gift.

Question 4: If a person acquires wealth without having worked for it , like, if someone gives him a gift, and that wealth exceeds his own annual expenses, does he have to pay Khums from the excess.

Answer: Yes, it is obligatory.

 

 

Source: Ayatollah Sistani

www.shafaqna.com

 

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