Paying wealth acquired from interest to avoid compulsory conscription

Question: 98245

Serving in the army is compulsory in my country. While kufr is tolerated, salaah, Quraan and everything that has a relation to Islam is banned; one will even be punished if he practices it. We can avoid conscription by paying a large sum of money.

The question:

Is it permissible to use the wealth gained from interest in order to avoid joining the army? Considering that we do not have Islamic banks here.

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.

Firstly:

If the matter is as you
describe, that kufr is allowed in this army and prayer and reading Qur’aan
are not allowed, then there is nothing wrong with paying money in order not
to join up, and it is permissible to avoid it by all Islamically acceptable
means.

Secondly:

It is not permissible to
deal in riba, whether by giving or taking loans, and it is not permissible
to make use of or benefit from interest. The one who is faced with that has
to repent from dealing in riba and get rid of this interest by spending it
on the public interest; he has no right to benefit from it himself. This has
been discussed in the answer to question no.
20876 and
45691.

If this money has come to
you from someone who has repented and wants to get rid of it, there is
nothing wrong with you making use of it in the manner you mentioned, or in
some other way, because it has come to you in a permissible manner, and the
prohibition applies only to the one who acquires it.

It is permissible for the
penitent himself to make use of this money that he acquired in a haraam way
if he has repented from riba and resolved not to go back to it again, and he
needs to make use of the interest that he already has in his hand to ward
off harm from himself, as in the case asked about here. So it seems that it
is permissible for him to make use of the interest in this case.

Ibn al-Qayyim discussed at
length the issue of getting rid of haraam wealth, and he stated that the way
to get rid of this wealth and repent fully is: by giving it in charity, but
if he is in need of it, then he may take as much as he needs, and give the
rest in charity. See: Zaad al-Ma’aad (5/778).

Shaykh al-Islam [Ibn
Taymiyah] (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: If this prostitute and this
wine-seller repent, but they are poor, then it is permissible to give them
as much of this money as they need. If he is able to do business or a
handicraft such as weaving and spinning, then he should be given enough as
capital (to start a business). End quote from Majmoo’ al-Fataawa
(29/308).

But it is not permissible
to carry on dealing in riba in order to make use of the interest to pay
fines, taxes and the like.

And Allaah knows best.

Source:

Islam Q&A

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