of the forbidden acts. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Every loan that yields a benefit is ribā (usury).” Therefore, it is not permissible for the lender to make the loan conditional upon any benefit that returns to him—whether by requiring an increase upon repayment or by extracting some other advantage from the borrower.

Regarding what the questioner mentioned—namely, that when the lender is a farmer he stipulates that the borrower must purchase a portion of the lender’s crop at an inflated price and then resell it at a lower price—this description is somewhat general.

1. If what is meant is that the lender will not hand over the loan unless the borrower first buys some of his crop before it is harvested, then this is prohibited, because it combines two sales in one. He has only lent him on the condition that he purchase that crop, thereby combining two contracts—the loan contract and the sales contract—making one contract contingent upon another, which is the very form that has been forbidden.

2. However, if the intention is simply that the wealthy person sells part of his crop to the needy person before harvest so that the needy one can resell it and benefit from the proceeds, then this is not a loan at all; it is the transaction known as tawarruq. In tawarruq, the needy person approaches a trader, purchases a commodity from him on deferred payment, then sells it in the marketplace for a lower cash price and makes use of the money. This is permissible according to the majority of scholars, provided its conditions are met: first, that the commodity be in the trader’s possession at the time the contract is concluded; and second, that the trader himself does not repurchase it from the debtor at a lower price, for that would constitute the prohibited ʿīnah (buy-back) transaction. Rather, he sells it to him on deferred payment.