He agrees to do jobs such as writing, translating and designing, then he hires someone else to do them
Question

                Selling that which one does not own comes under the heading of unlawful transactions, and this includes everything, not just products – is this correct? There are ways whereby a person can avoid an item that he does not own, but the problem is that services are not like tangible items and products that I can buy and then resell, because for example in design services, each person wants a specific design; the same applies to writing, everyone wants a particular topic. The same may be said about programming and development… So it is not possible to know what each customer wants until he requests the service and explains what he wants. I want to offer services on the Internet, including: writing, translation, design, programming, website development, and so on. Some of them will take me some time, and I am not highly skilled in others, so I found someone who can do some of these services for less than I would charge. Can I offer these services to customers, even though I am not skilled in some of them, then when the customer asks for a service, I in turn will ask the person who offers it for a lower price than me? Does there have to be a prior agreement between me and this person? Important note: with regard to these websites that we will work on and offer these services, payment is not made to the service provider until the customer submits his request and an agreement is reached on it. I hope that you will give a detailed answer on this matter, so that I may understand it clearly. May Allah bless you and increase you in knowledge.
Praise be to Allah.
	There is a difference between a person selling what he does 
	not possess of goods and items, and making a contract to do some work, which 
	may be hiring or requesting manufacture. In the latter two cases it is 
	permissible for a person to agree to carry out a particular task, then to 
	make an agreement with someone who will do it for less pay, so that he may 
	take the difference, unless that agreement is for the first worker to 
	undertake the work himself, or he was chosen deliberately, because of some 
	particular distinction that he has that the one who hired him wants from 
	that worker himself, such as one who hires a well-known calligrapher or 
	designer.

	It says in Kashshaaf al-Qinaa‘ (3/566): If the hired 
	worker agrees to do some work in return for payment, such as sewing a 
	garment and the like, there is nothing wrong with him giving the work to 
	someone else for less than the fee he charged. End quote.

	Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allah have mercy on him) said: If 
	a person is hired to do a task, such as if it is said to him: We want you to 
	clean this house every day, and you will have one hundred riyals a month, 
	then he in turn hires someone to clean the house every day, according to the 
	same agreement, but for fifty riyals, that is permissible.

	This is how people operate nowadays. You will find a 
	government, for example, agreeing with a company to clean the mosques, each 
	mosque for such and such per month, then this company brings workers who do 
	what they have agreed to, for less than a quarter of what the company agreed 
	to with the government.

	But if there is a reason why the one who hired a specific 
	person wants that person to do the job himself, this is not permissible. For 
	example, if you hire someone to copy out Zaad al-Mustaqni‘ [a book of 
	Hanbali fiqh] for you, and you know that this man’s handwriting is good, and 
	that he makes few mistakes, then he hires someone else whose handwriting is 
	beautiful, and he will write it for less than you hired the first man, then 
	the scholars say: This is not permissible, because what matters in the case 
	of copying is not only the beauty of the handwriting; rather it is the 
	beauty of the handwriting plus punctuation, diacritical marks, vowels and so 
	on. How many people there are whose handwriting is the most beautiful of 
	handwriting, but they lack precision; they write the verse “ghayr 
	il-maghdoobi ‘alayhim wa la’d-daalleen (ot 
	of those who have evoked [Your] anger or of those who are astray)” 
	[al-Faatihah 1:7] 
	incorrectly. Many students have beautiful handwriting, but when it comes to 
	precision they have no knowledge of the rules of the language; many other 
	people have bad handwriting, and no one can read it except one who is used 
	to it, but when it comes to the rules of writing, they excel. Whatever the 
	case, what matters is that when a person is hired for a specific reason 
	(such as a skill that only he possesses), it is not permissible to let 
	someone else take his place.

	End quote from ash-Sharh al-Mumti‘ (10/39).

	A similar distinction is made between selling a particular 
	item that a person does not possess, and selling an item that meets a 
	specific description, which is what is known as bay‘ as-salam 
	[salam transaction; payment in 
	advance]. This is an 
	exception from the prohibition on selling what one does not possess. Please 
	see the answer to question no. 
	184816.

	But your question has to do with hiring. It is permissible 
	for you to offer to write, translate, design and so on, and to make an 
	agreement on specific fees and work, then to hire someone to do that work, 
	unless the customer wants you to do the work yourself.
And Allah 
	knows best.