Malfuzat - Volume IX — Page 126
126 MALFŪZĀT - ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF URDU VOLUME 9 Chehlum A question of a person was presented before the Promised Messiahas whether the ritual of Chehlum¹ is permissible or not. The Promised Messiahas said: This ritual is outside the Sunnah [practice of the Holy Prophetsas]. Price of the Newspaper If the payment for purchase of the newspaper is collected in advance it would facilitate the running of the newspaper. Some of those individ- uals who do not pay in advance and make promises to pay later, do not go beyond just making promises. And in order to get payment from some, so much difficulty is encountered in repeated correspondence and keeping records of the reminders sent to them that in order to off- set the cost of this extra effort, and to reduce the loss to some extent and to compensate the expense, the cost of the newspaper Badr has been increased by one rupee for those who will pay later, that is, four rupees instead of three rupees will be charged to those who pay afterwards. A member from Lyallpur asked whether this method of payment is not a form of interest. As this matter was related to the Shariah, therefore, it was presented before the Promised Messiahas with the above explana- tion. The reply that the Promised Messiahas wrote was as follows: السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ ]Peace be on you]. In my view, this has nothing to do with interest. It is the prerogative of the proprietor to charge whatever price they wish, particularly if there is inconven- ience in collection afterwards. If someone wishes to obtain the 1. Chehlum is the observance by some Muslims of the 40th day following a person's death. [Publisher]