Using Cement Bought on the Black Market for a Mosque

Question

Zayd wants to have a mosque built. He is getting bags of cement cheaply “in black” (on the black market). That is, the contractor receives from the government a sufficient quantity of cement as needed, and he is instructed to mix sand and cement at a ratio of four to one; but the contractor mixes, for example, one bag of cement with sixty bags of sand. In this way he saves a great deal of cement and sells it at a cheap rate.

Answer

From the wording of the question it appears that the contractor is not the owner, but an agent (wakil) and hired worker (ajir) on behalf of the government. He saves the cement through fraud and breach of trust (khiyana) in order to sell it; he does not thereby become its owner. Such cement should not be used in the mosque.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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