Lifestyle Questions

It depends entirely on what the reward is attached to. Cashback from a merchant, a UPI app or a debit card is a discount or a promotional gift - the provider is paying to win your business, no loan exists anywhere in the transaction, and most scholars permit keeping it without hesitation. Credit card rewards are the contested case. A credit card is a loan facility, and the established maxim is that any stipulated benefit accruing to a borrower by virtue of a loan is riba. Scholars split on whether card rewards fall under it: one view says the benefit is tied to the borrowing relationship and should be avoided or given away, while another says the reward is funded by merchant fees rather than by the lender's interest income, and is compensation for using a payment network rather than a benefit on a loan. Where a card charges an annual fee and returns rewards worth more, the exchange looks less like a gift and more like paying money to receive more money.

One question resolves most of these: did you pay anything for the chance? A genuinely free draw - enter your name, no purchase, no fee, no premium-rate message - is a gift from the organiser, and gifts are permissible however they are allocated. Paying an entry fee for a chance at a prize is gambling: you stake money on an uncertain outcome, and if you lose your stake is gone. Raffle tickets and paid prize competitions fall here, including ones run for charity, because a good cause does not change the structure of the transaction. The middle case is where most confusion sits. Buying a product you genuinely wanted, which happens to include a draw entry, is generally permissible - you paid for the product and received the entry as a bonus. It becomes problematic when you buy something you did not want, or buy more than you needed, because the entry was the real purpose.

There is a clean line here and it is easy to apply. Buying a specific item for a stated price - a skin you can see, a battle pass with a listed reward track, extra levels, an ad-free upgrade - is an ordinary sale of a digital good. You know what you are paying and what you are getting, so the contract is defined and most scholars permit it. A loot box is different in kind. You pay a known amount for an unknown outcome determined by chance, and you may receive something of high value or nothing you wanted. That is paying money on a random result, which is the structure of maysir, and it is also gharar in its clearest form since the object of the sale is undefined at the moment of purchase. Several governments have reached the same conclusion for consumer protection reasons and regulated loot boxes as gambling. Where in-game items can be traded for real money, the resemblance is closer still.

These are two separate questions with opposite answers. An interest-bearing wedding loan is riba, and the necessity argument does not rescue it - necessity in Islamic law covers preserving life, health or protection from serious harm, and a wedding at a particular scale is not that. Marriage itself is encouraged, but the expenditure surrounding it in South Asian custom is culture rather than religion, and the Prophetic guidance points firmly toward simplicity: the most blessed marriage is the one with the least burden. Deferred mahr is the opposite case. Paying mahr later, or in instalments, is explicitly permitted and was practised from the earliest period. Mahr is a genuine debt owed to the wife, it belongs to her alone and not to her family, and any amount is valid provided she consented to it knowingly. What is not acceptable is a nominal mahr recorded to satisfy a formality with no intention to pay, or deferral used indefinitely so the obligation is never discharged.

Islamic inheritance shares are fixed by the Quran and are not yours to redistribute, which is why an Islamic will works differently from an ordinary one. You cannot use it to decide who gets what among your heirs - those proportions are already set. What a will does is ensure the fixed shares are actually applied, which matters enormously if you live somewhere the default law would distribute your estate differently. In the UK, dying without a will means the intestacy rules apply, and they do not match Islamic shares. In India, Muslim Personal Law governs, but a will still prevents disputes and lets you direct the discretionary third. That third is the part you can direct: you may bequeath up to one third of your estate to people who are not heirs, or to charity, and the Prophetic guidance is that a third is already generous. What you cannot do is bequeath to an existing heir, or exceed the third, without the other heirs consenting after your death.

The recipients of zakat are fixed by the Quran rather than left to discretion. Surah At-Tawbah names eight categories: the poor, the needy, those employed to collect zakat, those whose hearts are to be reconciled, freeing those in bondage, those burdened by debt, the cause of Allah, and the stranded traveller. Anyone outside these eight cannot receive zakat, however deserving. The exclusions catch people out more than the inclusions do. You cannot give zakat to your own parents, grandparents, children or grandchildren, because supporting them is already your obligation and you would be discharging one duty with another. A husband cannot give zakat to his wife. You cannot use zakat to build a mosque, cover funeral costs, or pay it to a non-Muslim on the majority view. Siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins in need are permitted and are often the most appropriate recipients.

Paid fantasy sports apps like Dream11 are generally impermissible because they are a form of maysir (gambling). The issue is not fantasy sports as a game — it is that you pay an entry fee into a pool, and the outcome (win big, lose your stake entirely) is determined by chance-affected results outside your control. If you currently play with real money, stop entering paid contests and withdraw any remaining balance; if you haven't started, stick to free-to-play formats with no entry fee.