Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Fifth Fascicle

your wheat in this bucket.” The villager did so, and the wheat fell
into water through a hole at the bottom of the bucket and the
water carried all the wheat away. The miller will have to pay for
the wheat if he knew about the hole at the bottom of the bucket as
he said to put the wheat in the bucket. For, he has cheated him by
saying so. That means to say that for an act to be a cheating the
person who gives the advice should be aware, and the person who
acts upon the advice should be unaware, of the precariousness. If
the villager had put his wheat in the bucket although he had seen
the hole, he would have wasted his property of his own accord.
It is an obvious fact that the insurance agent is by no means
intent upon cheating the tradesman. Whether or not the ship will
sink is something beyond his knowledge. As for the danger of
pirates and robbers; it would be known by the tradesman quite as
well as by the insurance agent. As a matter of fact, the tradesman
pays the insurance premium in order to get the compensation that
will be provided for the loss of his property, because he knows
about the dangers en route. The facts with insurance are dissimilar
to the downright cheat exemplified with the wayfarer and the
villager.
Supposing a Muslim tradesmen has a business partner who is a
harbî living in the Dâr-ul-harb, [such as a country where people
worship idols; say England,] and this partner makes a contract with
an insurance agent in that country, the property perishes, and he
gets the money paid as a compensation by the insurance agent and
sends it to his Muslim partner living in the Muslim country; it will
be halâl for the Muslim tradesman to accept the money. For, the
agreement, fâsid as it is, has been made between two harbîs living
in the Dâr-ul-harb. In effect, their property has been sent to a
Muslim of their own accord. It is not sinful for a Muslim to accept
it.
It is permissible for a Muslim tradesman to go to the Dâr-ulharb,
to make an agreement with the insurance agent there and,
when his property perishes, to receive the equivalent for his
property from the insurance agent’s representative in the Dâr-ulislâm.
For, an agreement made with a harbî in the Dâr-ul-harb has
no value. (By doing so, therefore,) he has taken possession of a
harbî’s property with the harbî’s consent. If he had made the
agreement with a disbeliever in the Dâr-ul-islâm and taken the
equivalent for the property (lost) from the disbeliever in the Dârul-harb,
it would not be halâl even if he had done so with the
disbeliever’s consent. For, he would have received the property as
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