Payment of debt may be delayed if creditor does not claim it
6-3-2013 | IslamWeb
Question:
I am doing business of textile trading/indenting with a partner. Our style of work is like that we both partners work with different parties and each one complete his deal on both seller and buyer side. In some cases one partner deals on seller side and other on buyer side.We usually try not to interfere in others work. Sometimes we deal with parties and they give us credit.We are ususlly working with parties from a long time.Now i am feeling uneasy because we have some funds of parties with us on account of some goods we have purchased from them on credit.These funds are lying with us from long time and the parties are not asking us to pay / clear their dues. All those parties to which we have to pay are the parties of my partner(He deals with them).Now i want to pay them as early as possible but my partner is not willing to pay them.He says that as he deals with the these parties and he knows when to pay to these parties and he has agreement with these parties. We had some heated arguments on these issues and my partner says if you do not want to keep this money in company , give it to me i will give to the parties as i deal with them.I really do not want to do this as i know he won;t pay to them but if i keep the money i will try to convince him to pay. As we have this money with us and most of times it is used to generate business and some times our own funds get stuck with some parties for long time.What would be ruling for us if these funds r used in our business. Should i give these funds to my partner for returning to parties.We do not hav capacity to clear all funds at a time as these r stuck somewhere. Out of this money some part could not be returned as person we were dealing with has left the job and he had adjusted our balance to pay to his co and if we try to pay the co direct we could land into trouble due to wrong doings of that persons (we do not know earlier) Should we give these to sadqa (without niya of swab) as we have funds.
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, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.
Amongst the permissible bilateral partnerships is the Mufaawadhah partnership (unlimited partnership) in which each party authorizes the other to handle freely every aspect of the capital and labor of the partnership such as buying, selling, speculating, authorizing, and purchasing through credit and the like.
Your question indicates that the partnership between the two of you is of that kind. If this is the case, then the rights of the contract of that partnership are equal for both partners.
Accordingly, both of you have to pay those debts. Saying that your partner is the one who took them does not count. Rather, you can pay off the debts without a special permission from your partner. However, if the debt is due and the debtor does not ask for it, it is not obligatory to pay it off immediately. Zakariyya Al-Ansaari 
said: "The solvent should pay off his due debt immediately as much as he can if he is asked for it because the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said: “The rich (solvent) who delays payment of a debt is committing wrongdoing.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] It cannot be said that someone delayed payment except if the debtor asked for it and he did not pay him. However, if he did not ask for it, it is not obligatory to do that."
Accordingly, it is not obligatory upon you to hasten to pay off that debt for the matter has no specific time, i.e. it could be delayed. We see that you should discuss that matter with your partner kindly to convince him to pay the price of those commodities to their owners and clear himself of their rights, or rather you may get benefit of that available money in your trade since the matter has no specific time. What is really required in your partnership is to agree with one another and not dispute for this is more appropriate to make you prosperous and successful.
When paying the debt, you have to do the following: To pay to the one from whom you took money. As for the agents of the companies who adjusted debts to be paid to their companies, then paying them to those companies is obligatory. It is not permissible to give them in charity as long as paying them to their owners is possible. Your assumption that some mistakes may occur while paying them is irrelevant for this may be avoided by many ways.
As for what you have mentioned about your inability to pay off all those debts in one stroke, then you may wait until you have money for paying them off, since payment does not have to be immediate as we have stated previously. Also, you can pay them off in installments by paying what is available until you pay them all.
Allaah Knows best.