Some friends decide to go out for dinner. It was agreed that one of them will pay and then they will distribute the bill equally. It was also decided that if per person cost is less greater than or equal to 0.5 then it will be rounded off to next digit otherwise it will be rounded to previous digit.
A 4 person dinner comes to 146 which divided by 4 becomes 36.50 per head. So now three of the friends pay 37 to the person who paid the bill. Is it interest?
I was wondering about this too. Paying in a round figure isn’t automatically considered interest (riba). What matters is whether the extra amount is agreed as a charge on top of the original debt. Just giving a round number for convenience is usually fine. For more guidance, you can check here:
The legal axiom in the Hanafi Madhab when it comes to Interest (usury) is:
كل قرض جر منفعة فهو ربا
Every loan that draws a stipulated benefit is riba.
This is the key issue.
In your scenario:
One friend voluntarily pays the restaurant.
The other three become liable for their share of the meal.
They reimburse him afterwards.
The Hanafi characterization is not that he lent each person money. Rather, he discharged a common expense on their behalf, creating a right to reimbursement. This is much closer to reimbursement of a debt/expense than to a contract of qard.
Therefore, the rules of qard (loan) are not directly engaged.
The interesting question is not whether it is a loan, but whether taking an extra 0.50 from each person is permissible.
Suppose each share is exactly 36.50.
By prior agreement each person pays 37.
The payer ultimately receives:
Paid: 146
Receives: 111
Bears: 35 himself
He is effectively reimbursed 1.50 more than the exact amount he advanced.
Is that riba? No, because there is no loan.
Is it automatically permissible? Not necessarily.
The better Hanafi analysis is that all four agreed before the meal that settlement would be according to this rounding convention. In that case, each person's liability was fixed by mutual agreement at 37 (or whatever the agreed rule produces), not at the mathematically exact fraction. Since the excess is known, agreed, and not arising from a loan contract, there is generally no issue of riba.
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
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