A teacher who wants to work without an underperforming platform partner

A question from a teacher working with an online platform for 60% of the income, with 40% for the platform, after the platform stopped doing its share, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that she is not entitled to more than the agreed share, and that she must first dissolve the partnership if she wants to work alone. ¹

The questioner said she teaches a university subject through an online platform for 60%, while the platform's manager takes 40% for advertising the course and uploading the videos; the managers then fell short, so she did the teaching, advertising and uploading herself and warned them without result; she asked whether she may take the full amount and work alone. ¹

The Department answered that a contract is binding law between its parties, and agreed conditions must be honoured if they involve nothing forbidden. ¹ It classed the arrangement between the teacher and the platform owner as a partnership in work (sharikat a'mal), in which profit is divided by the agreed proportion, quoting al-Marghinani's al-Hidaya that a partnership of crafts is permitted. ¹ It concluded that the teacher who does the platform manager's work is not entitled to anything beyond what they agreed, and if she wants to work alone she must first dissolve the partnership contract and then work on her own. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 3849, dated 2 January 2024. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.