Rushwa in the Guise of a Job Already Owed

Our ʿulamāʾ teach that where a person is already obliged, by his own job, to do something, and yet asks for payment on top of it, this too is rushwah. A teacher of the Qurʾān, already paid by the society and by the government for that work, who then asks twenty dollars an hour to teach a child at the mosque, is taking rushwah. A person who insists on being paid to perform a nikāḥ that it is his office to perform, after being asked and even begged repeatedly, takes rushwah. A person asked to attend a burial and offer duʿāʾ for the deceased, who names two hundred dollars and charges by the hour, takes rushwah.

Among the Turks — though not practised here, al-ḥamdu lillāh — there is a custom at weddings where the car carrying the bride and groom is blocked by young people standing in front of it, refusing to move until money is handed over: a hundred dollars for one, two hundred for another, a hundred for a third, the money collected going to those who blocked the way. This too is called rushwah. Among the Malays there is a similar custom: hiding a shoe, or playing some other prank on the couple, until money is paid — a milder form, an innocent one perhaps, but rushwah nonetheless. Beyond outright official corruption, then, there are customs, ʿādāt, among the people that border on, if they do not actually fall within, the boundaries of rushwah, and great care is needed over them.