How can I repent from buying shares in haram companies?
Question

                I looked at fatwa no. 35726 and my question is: to whom I should I sell these shares, to a Muslim or to a non-Muslim? If I sell them to a Muslim, then I will be one of those who passed on this sin to another Muslim and helped him in sin. If I sell them to a non-Muslim, my conscience will trouble me, because my role as a Muslim is to call him to Islam and the path of Allah, and to warn him against falling into sin. So what should I do?
Praise be to Allah.
      
      First of all, we thank the questioner for his high level of concern 
      towards all people, and his love of good for them and his desire to ward 
      off evil and sin from them, and especially for his understanding of the 
      responsibility of calling non-Muslims to Islam in all interactions, even 
      if that is at one’s own cost. We ask Allah, may He be exalted, to reward 
      you and to help us and you to do all that is good. 

    It is 
    well known in fiqh that contracts based on haram matters are invalid 
    contracts; what results from them is not binding, and the burden of sin 
    rests on all parties to the contract. One of the consequences of their 
    invalidity is that ownership is not transferred by means of such contracts, 
    and that the price must be returned to the one who paid it, so long as he 
    has not used or benefited from what he purchased - although there is a 
    difference of opinion among the scholars – because the transaction is 
    invalid in the first place. 

    This 
    ruling is also applicable to the purchase of shares in companies whose 
    activities are haram, such as riba-based (usurious) banks, companies that 
    sell alcohol and pork, tobacco companies, gambling companies, companies that 
    deal in degenerate art, and the like. If anyone purchases shares in them, 
    his purchase is invalid. Sincere repentance from this sin requires giving up 
    any civil obligations entailed in this contract, because repentance cancels 
    out what came before it. Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, says 
    (interpretation of the meaning): “but if you repent, you shall have your 
    capital sums. Deal not unjustly (by asking more than your capital sums), and 
    you shall not be dealt with unjustly (by receiving less than your capital 
    sums)” [al-Baqarah 2:279].

     If 
    the company recognizes that the purchase was invalid and agrees to return 
    the money voluntarily – but this usually does not happen except in the case 
    of limited shareholder companies – then the repentant shareholder is 
    entitled to take back what is rightfully his, by canceling the share 
    transaction with the haraam company itself. So he may take back his capital, 
    but anything surplus to that he must spend on charitable causes; it is not 
    permissible for him to benefit from it. And he must still repent and pray 
    for forgiveness in order to expiate that sin. 

    But 
    if the company or the body that regulates the stock market does not 
    acknowledge that the sale and purchase of shares in haraam companies is 
    invalid, or the company has public ownership and it is not possible to get 
    rid of the shares except by reselling them in the financial market, then we 
    have two options:

    1.
    
    To keep them, which is persisting in sin, because the 
    shareholder is a partner to the haraam actions that are going on in the 
    company, in addition to the fact that keeping the shares is participating in 
    transmission of something haraam to his heirs after his death;

    2.
    
    Or to get rid of them by selling them in the stock market.

    In 
    this case the second option, even though it is not free of some 
    objectionable matters such as helping someone else to engage in the haraam 
    partnership, is less serious than the first option. 

    Hence 
    the Standing Committee ruled that they may be sold in order to get rid of 
    them, as we have quoted in their fatwa in the answer to question no.
    35726.

    And 
    Allah knows best.