Dear Mufti, I had a contractual job, which was to promote women who had left their jobs to start their career. I worked for four months, but during that time my daughter got sick and my boss allowed me to go home whenever I want. I also did not get much work, and I was free most of time the last two months since I told my boss that my husband had moved abroad and that I will be leaving soon. I did go to the office, but I had no work. A reason can be that it was just a temporary position and that they did not give much work to me, or maybe it was because I told them purposely that I will move abroad. Now I am worried, should I return my salary for the last two months to the company? I do not want to be held accountable on the Day of Judgement. Even though my manager was kind and knew my daughter was sick and never burdened me with any work, he completed all the work for the department very well himself. What should I do?

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

If your manager is authorized to give the employees permission to leave during the normal working hours as he wishes and assign no tasks to some of them, then there is no problem in what you mentioned and you are not obliged to return anything of your salary. However, if your manager is not authorized to do that, then his permission for you to leave during the agreed-upon working hours specified in the contract is invalid. So what counts is whether your manager is authorized to do what he did or not. You can consult the company rules and regulations in this regard.

Whether the employee is assigned tasks during his working hours or not, or if he is assigned much work or not, does not affect his entitlement to the salary. Rather, he is entitled to his salary in full because there is no negligence on his part. The Hanafi scholar Az-Zayla‘i wrote, “The private worker is entitled to his wages by making himself available during the agreed-upon work interval, even if no tasks are assigned to him.” [Tabyeen Al-Haqaa'iq]

For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 127380.

Allah knows best.