العروة الوثقى الزيدية - موقع إسلامي يهدف لتعريف الزائر بفكر وتراث المسلمين الزيدية

The Question

Question: If a man becomes bankrupt and incurs many debts, while in his hand are some goods that do not cover even a quarter of his debt, and his guardians and relatives want to have interdiction (ḥajr) imposed upon him, because in the end they will bear the responsibility by virtue of the bonds of companionship (al-ṣuḥb) and the tribe – but they are unable to find a judge who can pronounce interdiction upon him due to security and political circumstances, and due to the prevailing state of chaos, disputes and enmities – then, instead of that, his paternal uncle, who is the closest to him and the one looked up to by the people in the family, went and informed those who deal with him that the man is bankrupt, so let them reclaim what they had sold to him, for his wealth is swallowed up by debts and in his hand there is not what covers a quarter of his debt.
Then those who dealt with him took back what they had sold him on credit, and took their merchandise itself. Then one of them bought from the bankrupt a car, and made its price in exchange for the deficiency that had befallen his merchandise which he had taken back from him. So what is the solution in that scenario, in the absence of judges?

The Answer

Answer – and success is from Allah – is that the paternal uncle of the bankrupt man has done well towards the man who had sold a commodity to the bankrupt, in that he informed him that his nephew is bankrupt, so let him reclaim his commodity which he had sold to the bankrupt on credit; for that reason, the seller took back his commodity from the bankrupt.
And if the people are in a state of chaos and instability, and there are no judges, then the public declaration by the head of the bankrupt’s household of his son’s bankruptcy, and his warning to those who deal with him so that they may reclaim their goods from him, takes the place of the judicial ruling of a judge, due to necessity.
At that point, it is not permissible for the one who has taken back his commodity from the bankrupt to buy from him any commodity, because what is in his hand of goods has become held and frozen by the declaration of his bankruptcy, and no disposal by the bankrupt in it is valid; rather, it is then distributed among the creditors, each according to the amount of his debt.
We have only deemed the declaration of the head of the family regarding the bankruptcy of their son to stand in the place of the ruling of the judge because it entails a benefit similar to that entailed by the judge’s ruling.

Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.2