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Fatwa CenterHired a Car for Four Passengers Only But Violated the Contract and Took Six In It
Question
For a trip to an islamic convention, my friends and I rented a large car which can fit 6 people from Mr X. But, the car rental agremeent with Mr X said that that only the maximum people allowed in the car at one time is 4, due to safety reasons. We agreed on a rental of usd 100. However, my friends and I decided to ignore the rule of "4 people only" and drove the car with 6 people in it for the entire trip. We felt we needed to break the rule, as the car was spacious, is cheap and other veichles were unsuitable. If Mr X knew we were to have more than 4 people in the car, he also wouldnt let us rent it. I understand that this is cheat and deceit as we broke the agreememt with the Mr X. But we took good care of the car and returned it so that Mr X would not know that 6 people were in it. My question is, how can we do tawbah for it and did we not return the rights of Mr X? If yes, can you share how we can return the rights of Mr X? My ideas is that since the agreement states the rent is usd100 to be shared with 4 people, which is usd25 per person. Should we pay back to Mr X usd 50 ( for having 2 extra people in the car) by donating it to a charity of his behaf since we cannot find him.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
As long as the agreement with the lessor that the number of passengers does not exceed four people at a time and you violated his condition, and rode the car with six people in it, then you have transgressed and you have (in this case) to pay the same price as other passengers to the lessor for the other two people in excess in the car.
If you cannot deliver the price to him, then you can give it in charity while intending the reward for him.
Mataalib uli an-Nuha, which is one of the Hanbali School of jurisprudence books, reads:
“...Or that he hired it (the animal) to ride it, but he took another person behind him [on the animal] – even if he did not exceed the distance agreed between them – [then in this case] he has to pay the price for the other person that he took with him, as he concluded the contract for only one person and not two people; so he must pay the same price as him for the second person (that he had taken with him on the mount).” [End of quote]
Allah knows best.
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