University offered student help on exam

17-5-2017 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalaamu alaykum. I am in a terrible situation right now. I joined a distance-learning program under an agency to facilitate exams and course management for a distant university; they did not provide me with the full course material till now, and the exam is in 10 days. It is impossible to complete studying the full books before the exam now. When I asked them about that, they told me that they will help me to write the exam and that I do not need to worry about books. So can I receive help from them? Or does this fall under cheating?

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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 is His slave and Messenger. 

The ruling depends on the type of help, because not all of it is cheating, such as if the help constitutes removing some lessons (from the curriculum), for example, or giving easy questions and so on, but if what is meant is that they will tell you the answers to the questions in the exam, then this is not an exam, but it is just cheating; it is not permissible for them to do it, and it is not permissible for you to accept it.

Allah says (what means): {…but do not cooperate in sin and aggression.} [Quran 5: 2]

The Prophet said, “The one who pretends to possess something which he does not actually possess is like the one who wears two garments of falsehood.” [Muslim]

The scholars said, “It means to pretend to have what one does not have by showing to the people that he has something while in reality he does not have it, so he beautifies himself with falsehood.”

Allah knows best.