Withholding food to wait for higher prices

A question from a food trader about merchants who withhold goods because they know prices will soon rise, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that hoarding is forbidden, and more gravely so for staple foods. ¹

The questioner said he trades in food and that some merchants withhold goods because they know prices will rise soon; he asked for the ruling on hoarding. ¹

The Department answered that the sharia forbids hoarding because it harms people, defining it as holding what was bought at a time of high prices to sell it dearer when need is acute. ¹ It said hoarding covers all goods people need if withholding them harms people, the Maliki view and that of Abu Yusuf among the Hanafis, quoting Ibn Rushd al-Jadd's al-Bayan wa-l-Tahsil and al-Kasani's Bada'i al-Sana'i. ¹ It said hoarding staple foods is more gravely forbidden, quoting Zakariyya al-Ansari's Asna al-Matalib that it is forbidden because it straitens people, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami's al-Zawajir counting it among the major sins, and his report that al-Ghazali extended staples to what supports them, such as meat and fruit. ¹ It concluded that merchants may not withhold basic foodstuffs or other goods bought at a time of high prices in order to sell them dearer when need for them is acute. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 3856, dated 7 March 2024. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.