Dear respected Shaykh, may you please clarify the ruling on this issue which has to do with depositing money in one of the Islamic banks, whereby the contract says that investments are done according to shari’a rulings and that profits are not specified and vary from time to time. The problem is that this bank is a branch of an Interest based bank. After the spread of Islamic banks, this bank saw it fit to open a branch that deals with Islamic transactions. Does this affect the ruling on depositing money in its Islamic branch? البنك الربوي الذي له فرع إسلامي 

Praise be to Allah, and may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah, his family and his companions.

To proceed:

It is not sufficient for permissibility of a transaction to describe it as conforming to shari’a rulings. Not only that but is necessary to clarify the facts of this transaction and its characteristics so that it can be known if it is free from shari’a precautions or if there is something which must be prohibited. The fact that the bank has other branches which engage in prohibited transactions does not affect its Islamic branch. This is the preponderate of the two views held by the scholars. 

Your brother,

Dr. Khalid al-Mosleh

13 / 11 / 1424 AH