The non-fixing of prices in Islamic law
In Islamic law, price fixing is regarded as an act contrary to justice. Islamic law holds that in normal circumstances there should be no regulation of prices: the market takes care of it. However, this rule has exceptions.
Anas (may God be pleased with him) reports:
“Prices became very high in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and the people said to him: ‘O Messenger of Allah, fix prices for us (price setting)’. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) replied: ‘It is Allah who does so. It is He who restricts or extends (His favours) and it is He who provides sustenance. And I hope to meet my Lord without any injustice committed against anyone, either in his property or in his life.'”
Reported by at-Tirmidhi, graded good and authentic.
As every rule has its exceptions, the exception cited by the scholars is the case of speculators on the market who inflate prices through deceit and cheating and thereby harm the economy. In that case, the authority has the right to set and fix prices in order to remove the harm.
As for the rule of one third (the view of some fuqaha), it has no scriptural legitimacy on this subject. The trader’s profit is not limited except by the market price, and one should be lenient in one’s transactions.
One must not deceive, nor cheat, nor practise ghabn al-fahish in sales.
The ghabn al-fahish that Islam forbids is selling goods at excessive prices that exceed the experts’ upper valuations. This does indeed harm the buyer and constitutes an injustice.
The rule of one third is a remote analogy (qiyas ba’id) that some draw with the rule of one third in the wasiyya (will) (cited in the hadith of Sa’d Ibn Abi Waqqas).
A bequest (wasiyya: will) is indeed what a person bequeaths by will, during their lifetime, in favour of one or more persons (who are not heirs): there can be no bequest in favour of a legitimate heir. Bequests are taken from the disposable third. Whatever exceeds this third is returned [to the legitimate heirs].
Seeking to justify the fixing of prices at one third by this rule of the wasiyya is unacceptable and far removed from both logic and the text.
Obviously, trade in Islam is governed by a moral code that forbids all cheating, deceit, unfair competition, ghabn fahish, speculative hoarding, lying and concealment, as we detailed in the article on the principles of sales in Islam.
What we have stated here about the fixing of prices also applies to the fixing of the maximum debt-to-income ratio of clients at 33%: this is a prudential rule and not a rule imposed by the Qur’an or the Sunnah!! Making sure that a client is solvent is legitimate, but neither the Qur’an nor the Sunnah has set a value for the maximum debt ratio. Once again, fixing it at 33% is a remote analogy (qiyas ba’id) that some draw with the rule of one third in the wasiyya (will) (cited in the hadith of Sa’d Ibn Abi Waqqas). It is quite simply a prudential rule and a matter of “best practice”, not a rule of Islamic law. Nothing prevents applying it, and it is even advisable to apply it, but one must not say that it comes from the Qur’an or the Sunnah!
عن أنس قال: غلا السعر على عهد رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم فقالوا يا رسول الله سعر لنا فقال: إن الله هو المسعر القابض الباسط الرازق، وإني لأرجو أن ألقى ربي وليس أحد منكم يطلبني بمظلمة في دم ولا مال. رواه الترمذي وقال حديث حسن صحيح.
ويستثنى من المنع من التسعير ما إذا حدث خلل مصطنع في السوق وتلاعب وغش فإنه يجوز للسلطان حينئذ التسعير لرفع الضرر
الربح ليس له حد تحرم مجاوزته، ولكن ينبغي للتاجر أن يكون سمحا في معاملاته
ومن جملة ما نهى عنه الشارع الحكيم في البيع : الغبن الفاحش وهو الزيادة في الثمن زيادة لا تقع تحت تقويم المقومين من أهل الخبرة والاختصاص
لكن ما هو مقدار الغبن الذي يثبت به الخيار عند من قال به؟
اختلف في ذلك من قال به: فعند الحنفية والمالكية في الراجح والحنابلة في قول أن العبرة في تقدير الغبن بعادة التجار لأنهم هم الذين يرجع إليهم في العيوب ونحوها من الأمور التي تقتضي الخبرة في المعاملات.
والقول الثاني لكل من المالكية والحنابلة أن المعتبر في الغبن الثلث.
والقول الثالث للمالكية ما زاد على الثلث،