Settling a business dispute

Category: 

Business Dealings & Money Matters

According to Madhhab: 

Hanafi

Reference: 

1440-069

Question: 

In 2016 I paid an
agent £19500 for a package for 4 people (myself, my wife and my two daughters).
Just after ramadhan 2016, my eldest daughter had an operation and so she could
not travel and as such my eldest daughter and my wife had to cancel their Hajj trip.


As the trip was already paid for and after asking the agent, I got my niece and
her husband to join me and my daughter for Hajj from Zambia.

They applied for thei visa in Zambia and booked thei flight tickets from Zambia
as they were going to join us in Jeddah. They got everything arranged from
Zambia but they had to subsequently cancel their trip as my agent in the UK did
not apply for our visa and gave our package to another party which we did not
find out until 2017.

I had to compensate my niece for all her out of pocket costs which came to over
£500. My agent refused to give us a refund in 2016 and made the excuse that the
visa was refused so he will take us for Hajj in 2017.

In early 2017, the agent had a very bad accident and was in hospital for a few
months and so did bot do any Hajj packages but kept promising me that he will
take us for Hajj with another group but it never materialised and he was still
refusing to give me a refund. I subsequently took him to court and got
judgement against him as well as his company for my payment to him as wel as
the compensation I had to give to my niece plus costs for the claim.

The agent did not have any money to pay me as per the judgement and so his old
partner interceeded for him to come to a compromise. Hence we agreed that the
agent will pay me £1000 which he did towards the claim costs and that he would
take us for Hajj in 2018 with a third party. The agent agreed with the third
party a package for us on the basis that when he got his Hajj visa license for
2018, he would give it to the third party in exchange of our Hajj package. The
visa license depended on the agent getting an ATOL license which he has not got
as yet and so he has not been able to get the visas this year.

The agent came to see me a fee weeks ago and apologised for all the
inconvenience and told me that he cannot take us for Hajj again this year as he
has not received his ATOL license and as such he cannot get the Hajj visa to
compensate the third party for our Hajj package and that the third party aso
have to cancel some bookings as they were relying to the visa from him. He
promised me that as soon as he has his ATOL license approved, he will give me
my ATOL certificate for the Hajj package so if he does not take me for Hajj in 2019,
I can claim from ATOL.

Similarly without me asking he gave me two choices as a means of compensating
the hassle he has put me through in the last three years.

1. when he takes me for Hajj in 2019, he will upgrade our rooms in Makkah and
Madinah.

2. Rooms will stay as normal but in addition he will take us for Umrah in
December 2018 at his cost.

My question is that from a sharia point of view, can I take option two? If it
is regarded as a gift, will there be any conditions applied? And if it is not regarded
as a gift and rather as a sulh, can hassle be regarded to be a valid sharie
musaalah anhu?


Answer: 

It will be permissible to accept any of the two options. It will not be regarded as a gift rather as part of the new “Sulah” that was made after failing to fulfil the previous one.

In the above case the “Musalaha anhu” is not the “hassle” rather it is the money that the agent owed you. (Shaami Vol. 6 Pg. 629) 

AND ALLAH TA'AALA ALONE IN HIS INFINITE KNOWLEDGE KNOWS BEST

ANSWERED BY: Ebrahim Patel

CHECKED AND APPROVED BY:  Mufti Muhammed Saeed Motara Saheb D.B. 

Islamic Date:3 Safar 1440 English Date: 13 October 2018

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