Is loopholes are permissible in islamic finance? I am a bussiness man someone adviced me to buy loopholes to avoid taxes and increase you bussiness rapidly..
1 Answer
163 And ask them about the town that was by the sea - when they transgressed in [the matter of] the sabbath - when their fish came to them openly on their sabbath day, and the day they had no sabbath they did not come to them. Thus did We give them trial because they were defiantly disobedient.
This is alluding to a story that is expounded upon in the tafsirs, about a town by the sea populated by the people of the Book.
According to the Torah Law, the Sabbath was a required weekly observance where the people of the Book were forbidden to engage in work, including fishing. The trial, here, was that the fish were difficult to catch normally, but they were visibly present and would be easy to catch during the Sabbath when they were forbidden from doing so.
Some citizens of the town decided to engage in a trick — a loophole — in order to take advantage of this; they would set out their lines and nets and traps before the Sabbath day started, and just leave them out during the Sabbath unattended. Then when the Sabbath was over, they would return and collect the catch.
165 And when they forgot that by which they had been reminded, We saved those who had forbidden evil and seized those who wronged, with a wretched punishment, because they were defiantly disobeying.
166 So when they were insolent about that which they had been forbidden, We said to them, "Be apes, despised."
While this was technically within the scope of the law against performing work on the Sabbath, it did not respect the Sabbath as they were expected to do. As such, those people were punished.
That said.
Financial systems are built around man-made laws, and we as Muslims are expected to adhere to them insofar as they do not contradict divine Islamic law. However, unlike the Sabbath law which was a divine commandment with very clear expectations that were transgressed in the above scenario, one cannot necessarily say the same thing about financial law.
In particular, it must be remembered that in many financial systems, a number of "loopholes" are intentionally left in because they're meant to be exploited. This might be because doing so is in the interests of the government or whatever powers were involved in drafting the law in the first place, or simply as concessions to make the law easier on the people.
So while the general principle of exploiting a loophole which breaks the spirit if not the letter of the law would still be problematic, that doesn't mean you can't take advantage of exceptions or concessions that are intentionally built into the law. Assuming, of course, that doing so does not involve lying or fraud or depriving others of their rights, or other such acts which are forbidden in general.
As such, one cannot give a blanket "loopholes are haram/halal" statement without understanding both the financial system involved as well as the specific loopholes being considered, and you'll need to take it all on a case by case basis.
