Life Insurance Fatwa No: 81441
- Fatwa Date:1-1-2001
I would like to ask ABOUT THE INSURANCE ON THE LIFE, fOR EXAMPLE YOU PAY MONTHLY 1000 and WHEN YOU REACH 60 YEARS OLD OR WHEN YOU DIE YOU WILL BE GIVEN 1 MILLION DOLLARS. SO WHAT IS THE HUKUM HERE? JAZAKM ALLAH KAIR
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, sallallaahu 'alyhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
Life insurance is among the most severely prohibited types of insurance. It is undoubtedly a type of gambling and risk which is prohibited in Islam. Allaah Says (what means): {O you who believe, intoxicants, gambling, Al-Ansaab (animals that are sacrificed on stone alters for idols), and divining arrows are an abomination of Satan’s handiwork. So avoid (strictly all) that (abomination) in order that you may be successful.}[Quran 5:90]
Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam , forbade all types of such risk [Muslim] Perhaps a Muslim might only pay one installment and then die, and get a payout of a million, while another Muslim completes all installments and dies later, and his inheritors do not take any more than one million. This is all gambling and risk, and the Islamic Sharee’ah does not approve of it at all.
Allaah Knows best.