Back to search

What is the ruling on waiving the remainder of an amount owed or surplus to the seller or debtor?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

There is no objection to combining exchange and gift, or sale and gift. So, if you give a seller ten riyals for an item that costs nine, and the tenth riyal is a gift, or you leave it with him as a trust, there is no harm in that.

What is forbidden is to exchange ten riyals for ten, where he gives you nine and defers the tenth; this is prohibited usury (riba).

Jurists have explicitly stated the permissibility of the remaining amount paid being held as a trust by the seller, or used to purchase something, or as a down payment (salam), or for the buyer to gift it to the seller.

Therefore, there is no suspicion of usury in the buyer leaving a portion of his money with the seller, because it is a sale and entrustment, not an exchange.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

Read the full answer on Ftawy