Question:

Is it allow to take ambulance membership? In this membership, you have to pay a certain amount annually regardless of how many times you use the service or whether you use the service at all.

Answer:

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In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Ambulance membership is just like roadside assistance membership. In both ambulance membership and roadside assistance membership, one does not get any monetary reimbursement. The ambulance will merely provide the services of treatment and transportation to the hospital, whereas the roadside assistance company will provide the service of fixing the car or towing it to a garage or to the client’s home.

There are two views among the scholars regarding roadside assistance. One view is that roadside assistance membership is just like insurance and is not permissible. This is the view of Hazrat Mufti Taqi Usmani sahib (May Allah protect him) (See: Fatawa Usmani: 3/404) and my respected teacher Hazrat Mufti Ebrahim Desai sahib (May Allah protect him). See the following links:

http://askimam.org/fatwa/fatwa.php?askid=5fbba51cfaf5e77f1387c9ef26cb6138  
http://askimam.org/fatwa/fatwa.php?askid=c271ff5fb16b1553fbe66dc8436b6d76  

The other view is that roadside assistance membership is not like insurance and is permissible (with conditions). See the following links:

http://www.daruliftaa.com/question?txt_QuestionID=q-18413650  
http://www.alqalam.org.uk/UserFiles/File/Breakdown%20Cover%20-%20a%20Discussion.pdf  

Based on the two views mentioned above, there would be two views on the permissibility of ambulance membership as well. According to one view, ambulance membership is just like insurance and hence not permissible. According to the other view, ambulance membership is unlike insurance and is permissible.

Of the two views, the first view -- i.e. the view of impermissibility -- is the safer and more precautionary view.

And Allah knows best.

Mufti Faizal Riza
3/11/2011
Darul Ifta Australia
www.mufti-online.net  
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