Increasing the broker’s fee to avoid interest

Question

Question: A merchant trades in cloth. He goes to Delhi and buys cloth through a broker, and they give the broker a sum of “one hundred rupees per hundred” (?) as commission or wage. And if some money remains outstanding on credit, they charge interest on it at a rate per hundred, because the brokers buy the goods from the market, and if money of the market traders remains owed by them, those take interest from them, and the brokers take it from us.

Answer

The broker’s fee in the prevalent manner is impermissible. The permissible form is that the broker is engaged as a labourer, for example for one day or half a day, with the wage fixed, and on that day the cloth is bought through him and the fixed wage is paid. Then the buyer and the broker may settle between themselves whatever wage they wish; there is no harm in this.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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