Sixth: A commercial insurance contract imposes a liability that the Sharia does not impose. The insurer neither brings the risk about nor contributes to it; his role is merely to covenant with the policy-holder to cover the peril should it materialise, in return for a sum the latter pays. The insurer performs no actual service for the policy-holder, and therefore the transaction is unlawful.

As for the proofs cited by those who permit commercial insurance—whether in all its forms or in some of them—the reply is as follows:

(a) The appeal to istiṣlāḥ (public interest) is unsound, for interests in Islamic law fall into three categories:
• A category the Sharia has expressly endorsed; this is authoritative evidence.
• A category about which the Sharia is silent, neither endorsing nor negating it; this is a maṣlaḥah mursalah, the field of scholarly ijtihād.
• A category the Sharia has explicitly negated. Commercial insurance contracts are filled with ignorance, excessive uncertainty, gambling, and usury, placing them squarely in this third category, for the harm in them plainly outweighs any benefit.

(b) Original permissibility cannot serve as evidence here. Conclusive proofs show that commercial insurance contradicts the Book and the Sunnah. The rule of original permissibility applies only when nothing has transferred the act from lawful to unlawful, and such a transfer exists in this case; hence the argument collapses.

(c) The maxim “necessities permit prohibitions” is likewise inapplicable. Allah has opened to His servants lawful avenues for earning wholesome provision many times greater than what He has forbidden, and no necessity recognised by the Sharia forces recourse to the insurance it has prohibited.

(d) Custom (‘urf) is no proof either. Custom is not a source for legislating rulings; it is invoked only in applying established rulings and in understanding the intent of words in the texts, in people’s oaths, in their claims and reports, and in all other matters—