Sale of Monthly Periodicals by Subscription

Question

Question: In our time there is a custom of subscribing to magazines and papers: the subscriber sends the price in advance at the beginning of the year, and throughout the year the magazines and papers — weekly, monthly and so on — are produced and sent to the subscriber on behalf of the owner. Is this transaction valid or not? Zayd says that this transaction is not valid, because it is the sale of something non-existent, while Bakr says that it is valid on account of necessity. Whose view is correct?

Answer

This transaction is valid. The total price is divided among the issues of the whole year, and the sale of each issue will be deemed valid at the time it is received. That is, this is not a single sale but multiple sales: the sale of each issue takes place when it reaches the buyer, and at that time it exists and is not non-existent. So it is in Imdad al-Fatawa.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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