Is Buying an Assortment of Items With Colour Undefined Permitted?

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

 

Question

Is it allowed to buy a toy assortment or product assortment? What I mean is for example, if I wanted to buy a box that is listed as an assortment, the options are either a red box or a black box. However, I cannot pick which one, it says the box I receive is random so it could either be a red or black box. Does this count as a gharar transaction and therefore invalid if I were to buy this product. 

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate

Walaikum assalam,

I hope you’re doing well, insha’Allah. 

This would be permitted.

This is a non-definition that doesn’t lead to dispute, customarily. Such non-definition doesn’t affect the permissibility of the transaction.

The condition for a valid and sound sale is that the item be defined as to what it is, and described sufficiently in its characteristics, such that it lifts non-definition (jahala) that could lead to dispute.

[Majalla, with Sharh al-Atasi; Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

And Allah is the giver of success and facilitation. 

Wassalam,

[Shaykh] Faraz Rabbani 

 

Shaykh Faraz Rabbani spent ten years studying with some of the leading scholars of recent times, first in Damascus and Amman, Jordan. His teachers include the foremost theologian of recent times in Damascus, the late Shaykh Adib al-Kallas (may Allah have mercy on him), and his student Shaykh Hassan al-Hindi, one of the leading Hanafi fuqaha of the present age. He returned to Canada in 2007, where he founded SeekersGuidance to meet the urgent need to spread Islamic knowledge–both online and on the ground–in a reliable, relevant, inspiring, and accessible manner. He is the author of Absolute Essentials of Islam: Faith, Prayer, and the Path of Salvation According to the Hanafi School (White Thread Press, 2004.) Since 2011, Shaykh Faraz has been named one of the 500 most influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center.