Selling grain to a destitute poor person at a higher price

Question

Question: The wealthy people in our area have devised this method of oppressing the poor: when, during scarcity, a time of starvation comes and some poor person asks a wealthy man for a loan of rice and the like, he does not give it, and these unfortunates do not have enough money at hand to buy that thing right now.

Answer

A difference between the cash price and the credit price is not impermissible in the Shari‘a; in trade this difference is valid both in the Shari‘a and by custom. But a poor person who, overwhelmed by starvation, takes grain on credit in order to feed his hungry children is greatly deserving of mercy.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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