Ruling on rent paid as lump sum
18-11-2012 | IslamWeb
Question:
Assalam o alaikum Shaikh, I have few questions pls answer in the light of Quran/Hadith ? 1. I have a house which i have rented and receiving monthly rent. The tenant has rented that same property on a lumpsum amount of 400000 lacs to someone else with my knowledge.. Now i am in need of money and my tenant is ready to pay me that 400000 lacs .He may even continue to pay the regular rent that he is paying . Is it ok for me to take that money ..? 2. Sharjah islamic bank gives personal loan by using the following approach , whereby they purchase the shares/stocks with the consent of customer and then sell it to the customer on profit . The customer then sells these shares and gets his money . Generally most of the Islamic banks follow th same approach only the commodity changes lets say sugar etc. Is this permissible ? 3. When we rent house on lumpsum amount with no rent or low rent, the tenant as well as the owner both are aware and the owner uses this money for investment and gets profit and the tenant lives in his house and get benefit. In other words the rent which he was supposed to pay the owner gets that by investing ? Is this not OK ? since the owner is using his money and thereby giving him the facility of low rent. Secondly is it compulsory for the owner to rent his property , can he not use his property the way he likes, like no rent , low deposit etc. The reason is that in todays world no one lends you any money and since there are no islamic banks in india its difficult to get large amount of money . JAzak-Allah
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
Your question included three points but the answer to the first and third points may be summarized in the following:
If the matter is that the landlord rents his estate for a known period in return for a known price but he conditions on the tenant to pay the entire fee at the time of the contract, or that he pays part of it while a small fee will be paid monthly or annually, and after that the landlord invests the amount of rent and benefits from its profit, then this is permissible even if the amount of rent is small.
On the other hand, if the matter is that the landlord agrees with the tenant that the latter pays a small fee but he lends him an amount of money from which he benefits during the time of the contract and then he gives it (the loan) back to him when the tenant returns to him the rented property, then this is not permissible as this is a loan that involves benefit which is Riba (usurious interest).
However, if they agree on a known amount and the contract is concluded according to it, and later the landlord needs money and the tenant lends him some money, then this is permissible.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that there is some ambiguity in these two points which you did not clarify in the question, because asking a clear question is half of the answer.
As regard the third point about Tawarruq, then this matter is discussed in details in Fataawa 131558 and 90815, so please refer to them.
Allaah Knows best.