May I Accept a Discount Shopkeepers Give Me Because of My Government Uniform?

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Question

I am a government employee. Sometimes when I am in uniform and use a shopkeeper’s services, he reduces the bill or refuses to take my money at all. Is this unlawful?

Answer

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

The discount is not yours to take. A benefit that reaches you because of your post belongs to the office you serve and not to you, so unless your department has authorized its staff to accept such reductions, pay the bill in full.

The Discount Belongs to Your Office, Not to You

That is the reasoning the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) gave himself. He appointed a man to oversee the zakat of Banu Sulaym, and upon his return, the man said, “This is what belongs to you, and this is a gift given to me.” He answered, “Why did you not sit in your father’s house and your mother’s house until your gift came to you, if you were truthful?” [Bukhari] Ibn al-Humam (Allah have mercy on him) reads that reply as a statement of cause: “the reasoning of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) is proof of the prohibition of a gift whose cause is the office.” [Ibn al-Humam, Fath al-Qadir] On the same page, he carries it past the judge: anyone who does work on behalf of the Muslims stands where the judge stands in the matter of gifts. Your post is such work. The shopkeeper is not reducing the bill for you but for the uniform, and the uniform is your department’s.

Your Department Can Lift the Bar, but You Cannot Decide That Yourself

Then comes the exception, and it is where your question sits. Because the benefit belongs to the office, only the office can release it. Ibn Hajar (Allah have mercy on him) says as much in his commentary on this hadith, noting that it bars officials from taking a gift from anyone who has a matter before them, then adding: “and that holds where the authority has not given him leave in the matter.” [Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari] So, where your department has authorized the benefit for its staff, by a written policy or by a settled practice your superiors know of and allow, the bar is lifted. What you may not do is settle the question yourself, so ask your line manager or read the service rules.

Let me be plain about how our Hanafi school reaches that. Its books do not take up staff discounts in the chapter on gifts to officeholders. What they give is the general rule of property, in Imam Haskafi’s (Allah have mercy on him) words: “it is not permitted to dispose of another man’s property without his leave, nor without authority over it, except in cases mentioned in al-Ashbah.” [Haskafi, al-Durr al-Mukhtar] Read that closing clause, because it is the half that helps you. Ibn Abidin’s (Allah have mercy on him) commentary gathers there the cases in which a man may deal with another’s property without express leave, and ends on the rule that leave found by indication counts even where none was given in words. Applying it to your case is reasoning from a principle rather than a ruling written for you. It is the right principle, and it lands where Ibn Hajar lands.

A Discount From Someone With Business Before Your Office Is Never Clean

One thing no policy can settle. A discount offered to all staff by a trader who has nothing to do with your office is one matter. A discount from a man who needs something from your department now or may need it next month is another. Imam Zayla’i (Allah have mercy on him), writing of the judge, permits the gift of a close relative and of a man whose habit of giving was established beforehand, then closes even that door: “even if the two of them have a matter in dispute, or he gave beyond the custom, he returns it, because it is then for the sake of the judgeship, so it is of misappropriation.” [Zayla’i, Tabyin al-Haqa’iq] His word is ghulul, taking for yourself what belongs to the Muslims at large. Where the giver may be affected by how you do your job, the benefit is not clean, no matter what the rulebook says.

Two Tests, and What to Do When You’re Offered One

Two tests will keep you right. Would this shopkeeper give the same discount to a stranger in ordinary clothes? Does he have any business before your office, now or likely soon? If the first answer is no, or the second is yes, pay in full.

When you pay, put the money down before he can wave you off. If he presses, tell him warmly that your work does not permit it, and that you would gladly be his guest at home, where the uniform counts for nothing. As for what you took before you knew, Ibn al-Humam’s page directs that it be returned to the people it came from, where they are known; so return what you can and turn to Allah for the rest.

For the wider question of what counts as a bribe and where a narrow allowance exists, see What Are the Ruling Regarding Bribes?

Find out what your department actually permits, and let your salary be the only thing your uniform earns you.

And Allah knows best.

Faraz Rabbani

Related Answers

• What Are the Ruling Regarding Bribes? — Covers the narrow exception the Hanafi school allows, and where an ordinary bribe stays flatly off-limits.
• What Does Our Tradition Say about Giving and Receiving Gifts? — Explains the general encouragement to exchange gifts, the backdrop of this answer’s officeholder exception sits.
• Is It Permissible to Work for the Government and Receive Salary Derived From Taxation? — Addresses a related worry for anyone in government service about where their earnings actually come from.