Is Life Insurance Halaal?

[MJ-Pride]

This guy I know put a Life Insurance on his Ayeeyo two years ago and the ayeeyo died two weeks allah yarhamud. The guy is excited because he is getting 240,000 Is this Money like Riba? Its Halal? I asked two shiekhs and they were at odds. Any Sheikhs in here?

[cabdallah252]

its halal

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Sate ... 9503543412

[MJ-Pride]

Cabdalla, It says Error. Can you copy and paste it in here please? If it halal, I'd put insurance on every aging person that I know

[cabdallah252]

Dear questioner, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you place in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake.


Life insurance is a new contract not known in the history of Fiqh. Muslim scholars have different opinions regarding this kind of insurance.

Responding to the question, Dr. Monzer Kahf, Scholar in Islamic Economics & Financial Expert, states the following:

In the circles of contemporary Shari'ah scholars, there are three opinions about life insurance. They all recognize that it is a new contract not known in the history of Fiqh. A minority consider it haram and with all kinds of argument against it including Riba, gambling, gharar and speculation on the will of Allah. This view does not carry much weight.

The second view is that it contains gharar because no one knows whether the liability of the insurer (the company) will ever materialize nor when it will, if ever. This is a serious gharar that leads to a major defect in the contract. It is therefore forbidden.

The third opinion is presented by the late Sheikh Mustafa al Zarka. He argued that the gharar in the contract is remedied by the fact that it is a contract based on overwhelming statistical knowledge and the application of the theory of probability. With this in mind, there is no gharar on the part of the insurer and the contract is permissible with two conditions: that it contains no Riba clause and that its subject (insured thing) be legitimate. These two conditions rule out regular fixed return life insurance because the value of the policy is the outcome of investment premiums at a compounded rate of interest, (while variable - return life is permissible if the funds are invested in the Shari'ah approved stocks or mutual funds). They also rule out insuring a prohibited activity such as casinos.

The advocators of the second opinion argue that the gharar problem applies only in exchange contracts. If the contract is modified and restructure on the basis of cooperation or mutuality, where there will be an association of the insured instead of a profit motivated insurer company, the gharar is then tolerated. This is so because the relation between the association and its members become based on contribution or tabarru' rather than exchange and a tabarru' can accommodate certain conditions ( i.e., that the association compensate in case a hazardous event happens). On the basis of this all the "Islamic insurance companies" were established.

In this regards, al-Zarka adds, that if a mutual or cooperative insurance exists he prefers it to profit motivated insurance out of his respect to the opinion of opponents. There is an old argument (from the 1950s), even by those who oppose insurance, that whenever insurance is forced by law, one must do it and one is excused, from the Shari'ah point of view. This include car insurance, social security, workman compensation, and employer's imposed insurance if it is not optional for the employee to this we add another element that if the insurance provided by the employer is paid completely from the employer, i.e., given as a fringe benefit without deducting any part of the premium from the pay checks, then it is a kind of grant from the employer and if a hazard happens the paid policy amount is halal because it is an outcome of the grant.

Now think for yourself: if your life insurance is only term life, you may apply the opinion of Sheikh al-Zarka, and if it is imposed by employer, you also have room to accommodate, and if it is a grant from employer it is also tolerated. Otherwise you need to see the specifics of the contract you have and determine, in the light of the above briefing, whether you keep or seek to withdraw from it.

[MJ-Pride]

Wow. Somalis are mislead Wallahi. Soo many people were telling the guy that the money is Xaram. I will print this out and show those haters. And My Old ayeeyo who is 72 will be insured next week.

[Kramer]

If u putting life insurance on Ayeeyo's and then suffocating them with pillow the next day --its Haram!
but any thing that benefits your family is Halal!

[Advocatar]

Ofcoarse not...........I was on life insurance since infant and although my parents couldnt resist the temptation during hard times, I told them hold on, the longer they wait--the better.

[Bagamundo]

[quote="MJ-Pride"]Wow. Somalis are mislead Wallahi. Soo many people were telling the guy that the money is Xaram. I will print this out and show those haters. And My Old ayeeyo who is 72 will be insured next week.[/quote]


Do you need help in killing your ayeeyo at ease?

Lemme know.

[Demure]

It should be Xaraam in my opinion, considering the statistics of deliberate deaths in pursuit of the insurance money.

[Ican]

If someone is willing to kill for life insurance money, good chance they would have killed for something else. I doubt life insurance money is gonna change someone into a murderer.

[Demure]

Ican, Not necessarily, people that never thought of killing may think their elderly parent or their sickly child could use to die or they may find themselves in dire fianancial needs that they see it's time to collect life insurance.

"If someone is willing to kill for life insurance money, good chance they would have killed for something else. I doubt life insurance money is gonna change someone into a murderer.
If someone is willing to kill for life insurance money, good chance they would have killed for something else. I doubt life insurance money is gonna change someone into a murderer."


According to some sociologist it doesn't take much to turn anybody into a murderer, I can't remember his name or the experiments but he claims most of us are capable of killing with the slightest incentive or if we're told to by a figure of authority.

[FAH1223]

the acts people do to get the cash (like murder) is haram

but i dunno why life insurance itself would be haram though if you ain't tryin to kill someone

[Aerosmith]

Go for it MJ-Pride. Viaticles is a legitimate investment with often good returns.
Good luck mate

[*Nobleman*]

I heard insurance of any nature is haraam, even health and car insurance, unless it is legally required. This is because it involves an element of gharar (risk) and gambling on the unseen. Inshallah i will try and find a source.

[Steeler [Crawler2]]

The real issue should not be halal or haram (it's halal) but rather the fact that this guy was happy his loved one died. WTF????