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Fatwa CenterHanding over goods with receiving payment
Question
As salaam aleikum, We have a business that deals with buying and selling, recently a customer made some huge order and the terms agreed was one month payments with post dated cheques. We took the goods from another company and we also inform them that we will be giving their money after one month from the time we took the goods. Our customer has distributed the goods to his customers but they have not paid him the money, and its over a month and we are worried if the money will be paid back. We are stucked and we don`t have any money to pay our supplier. What if this customer conned us? although he gave me his ATM card in order for me to withraw some cash every week but it is too little. Are we placed in the same position like the person who is indebted? It has made me so sad because my main reason was to do business. Is this imtihaan for me that was decreed already? Hadha WabilLaahi Tawfiq.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
Undoubtedly, the good and bad that befall a person are all predestined by Allaah, as Allaah Says (what means): {No disaster strikes upon the earth or among yourselves except that it is in a register before We bring it into being — indeed that, for Allaah, is easy. In order that you not despair over what has eluded you and not exult [in pride] over what He has given you. And Allaah does not like everyone self-deluded and boastful.} [Quran 57:22-23].
If a believer believes that this is a predestined matter, then this will ease his sorrow and lessen his difficulty, and he will not despair of the Mercy of Allaah. However, some of these afflictions may be a punishment and deterrence for committing what Allaah has forbidden and others come as a test for his perseverance; for more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 87608.
As regards the transaction which you mentioned, if you sold the goods to the customer before buying and possessing them, then you have committed something forbidden as this is selling that which you did not possess. A Prophetic narration reads: “Do not sell that which you do not possess.” [Abu Daawood].
It could be that what happened is a warning so that you would stop engaging in such transactions.
However, if you only promised the customer without conducting a sale contract with him, and when you bought the goods, you sold them to him, then this is permissible.
Finally, we ask Allaah to help you and make a way out to your difficulty.
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