Obtaining goods by depositing money in instalments, and taking a prize

Question

Question: Here a bicycle dealer started, a few months ago, the following practice: he makes buyers of bicycles “purchasing members” for twenty months and gives each buyer a purchase number. Each buyer deposits the sum of 12 rupees every month for twenty months; when the total reaches 240 rupees, the bicycle is handed over to the buyer. Moreover, the shopkeeper, taking from his own buyers, gives one bicycle every month as a prize to that member of his whose purchase number matches the designated number.

Answer

For salam it is necessary that, in the session of the contract (majlis al-‘aqd), the muslam ilayhi (the seller in salam) takes possession of the price — the capital of the salam (ra’s al-mal); that is absent here.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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