Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
Ruling on extended warranties — 0:00
our final question for today brother nasser from minnesota says is it permissible to purchase extended warranties on a product i'm going to purchase an expensive electronic device and i have the option of adding on an extended warranty is it permissible or not the response to this question is actually as usual very very complicated you can have two or three opinions out there believe it or not there's actually three opinions i can give you uh meaning two would say it's allowed uh uh uh two would say it's not allowed and they give different reasons and what we say that it is allowed or you can even add a fourth so depending on who you ask but again the rapid q a it really goes back to uh a person's position on insurance and also a person's position on radar or uncertainty and because this is rapid fire q a let me simply state that the position i endorse and it is the position of one of my teachers it is also the position of uh one of the the the specialist uh economic uh uh fatwa uh committees based in the middle east and that is that if at the time of purchase at the time of purchase a warranty can be added either from the manufacturer or from the buyer it doesn't matter to us but at the time of purchase you connect the warranty to your purchase price even if it's more in this case it is permissible to purchase a warranty however if you're going to purchase the warranty afterwards not related to your contract of purchasing the item and it is from a third party in this case you are directly purchasing insurance and generally speaking uh we should not directly purchase insurance now somebody can say what's the difference the difference between the increasing of the price of the product in return for extending the warranty versus purchasing the separate coverage is that the warranty in the first instance it is directly linked with the sale of the transaction the actual transaction and the basic principle of islamic fic of islamic transaction is that things may be overlooked if they are connected to a transaction in a way that they will not be overlooked if they are the purpose of the transaction okay so uh that that which is secondary can be overlooked but if it was primary and the intended then it cannot be overlooked okay now this might be you know uh considered to be like a technical cop-out but in reality it is what it is and it is a valid point and there are many examples from hadith to prove this point there are many examples from the hadith about sales and transactions that prove this point hence the scholars state that the ambiguity the that is prohibited is that which has to do with the item itself the main object of the transaction so to purchase an extended warranty separate from purchasing the item from another party after you purchase the item now that is the goal and so that's going to be not something that is encouraged and generally speaking and i have a much longer video on insurance it should be avoided however to purchase the item and then you say oh there's a warranty okay let me just add it on no problem now this is now attached to it is consumed by the goal is the item and then you've tacked on something and that wasn't the goal that wasn't the intended point the item is the goal and you've tacked something on that is overlooked now i'm not saying it's encouraged but you ask is it allowed it's all allowed because it's overlooked because it is subsumed by the actual item itself and it becomes something that is tabir that is a corollary and that which is a corollary can be forgiven whereas that which was intended might not be forgiven this is the ruling that a number of of famous uh including jubilee and others they applied it to this to this case so the bottom line if you are offered a warranty at the time of purchase you may pay more for the warranty if it is included in the purchase price and it will be considered to be a corollary however you should not uh enact a separate transaction at a later date uh in order to have the warranty and allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows best and with this we come to the conclusion of today's q a and inshallah we will continue with our regular more detailed q a next week jazakum allah m