A scheme of shared car purchase followed by a draw

A question on a scheme in which two hundred people share the price of a car that is then drawn for one of them, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that it is forbidden because it rests on gambling. ¹

The questioner described a scheme in which a recent car, no more than six years old, is valued at its real price with a 10–15% operating and management fee added: a car worth 1,750 dinars, for example, plus 250, is sold to 200 people at 10 dinars each, and after seven days a public draw is held and the winner owns the car. ¹ He said the winner must show he is on a limited income, pays 20% of the car's value back to the other participants, cannot enter again for a year, the terms are disclosed to all, and marketing is through social media and shopping centres. ¹

The Department answered that gambling and games of chance are forbidden in principle, because one participant gains at the others' expense, leading to disputes and to consuming people's wealth unjustly. ¹ It said the participants here each pay part of the car's price so that whoever the draw falls on gets the car, which is gambling itself, and the outward form of partnership and ownership is only a cover, as shown by the participants' ownership ending once the draw is made and the car being taken from them. ¹ It cited the hadith forbidding wine and games of chance, and al-Bujayrimi's definition of maysir as an act whose doer may either gain or lose, and concluded that the scheme is forbidden. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 3811, dated 3 October 2023. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.