He paid a bribe to enter a specialty; is it permissible for him to use that certificate?

Question: 225200

I graduated from the College of Medicine, and I applied to the Directorate of Health with the aim of specializing in some branch of medicine, but I paid a sum of money, one hundred thousand, to one of the senior officials so that I could guarantee acceptance into the specialty for which I registered. My intention in guaranteeing admission to that specialty in this way was twofold: firstly to guarantee that specialty, and secondly and more importantly, to avoid compulsory conscription into the army if I did not enter that specialty, because those who join the army are under surveillance, and I would not be able to pray regularly, since some of them do not pray at all for fear of being spied upon. My question is: do I have the right to use the certificate for that specialty after completing the training period, which lasts for four years, and graduating successfully from it, and which I entered by paying money to that official? Please note that paying money to enter the specialty is a widespread practice in our country, and the selection is made by choosing the best of the applicants for the specialty, and I do not know whether I will have taken the place of someone else who is more entitled to the specialty than me or not?

Answer

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.

If you met all the conditions of joining that specialty, and you could not join that specialty except by paying money to that official, then there is no blame on you in this case for paying that money, and the sin is on that official. The scholars (may Allah have mercy on them) stated that if someone pays money in order to get what is rightfully his or to ward off some injustice from himself, then he does not incur the sin of paying bribes in this case.

Al-Khattaabi (may Allah have mercy on him) said:

If he pays something in order to get what is rightfully his or in order to ward off some injustice from himself, then he is not included in this warning."(Ma‘aalim as-Sunan 4/161).

Ibn al-Atheer (may Allah have mercy on him) said:

As for what a person pays in order to get what is rightfully his or to ward off injustice, that is not included in it [i.e., In the prohibition on paying bribes]."(An-Nihaayah fi Ghareeb al-Hadith wa’l-Athar (2/226).

For more information, please see the answer to question no. 72268 and 194653 .

But if you did not meet all the conditions, then you have committed a haraam act, but this does not invalidate the certificate that you have obtained, because you successfully completed the period of training.

In the answer to question no. 69820 , we quoted a fatwa of Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azeez ibn Baaz (may Allah have mercy on him) regarding one who obtains a certificate by cheating in some exams, and he advised him that it is permissible for him to make use of this certificate and get a job based thereon, on condition that he does not fall short in that work.

We think that your issue is less serious than that, because the deceit did not have to do with your deserving to succeed; rather the most that can be said is that you did not meet all the conditions of joining.

Based on that, we think that there is nothing wrong with you making use of this certificate.

And Allah knows best.

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