Money Received While Refugees Without Work Fatwa No: 82303
- Fatwa Date:15-8-2000
I want to ask about this money we take in Europe when we live as refugees without work.
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 is His slave and Messenger.
Dear brother, living in a non-Muslim country is prohibited in Islam as a general rule, except if one is compelled to live there (not able to find any Muslim county in which to live) and is able to perform all his religious duties while avoiding all forms of disbelief and depravation that exist in such countries.
For more benefit on Muslims living in non-Muslim countries, please refer to Fataawa 81142, 81464, 81642, 86405, 377986, 369667, 89879 and 88291.
If one is living there for a legal reason, then it is permitted for him to receive the aid given to him as a refugee which is called unemployment benefit. The Muslims in their first and second migration to Ethiopia had received all kinds of support. King Negus had honored them before he embraced Islam.
If one is compelled to live there, he should make his utmost effort to find a job to be free of this aid because it might affect him, causing him to submit to them, or he may hesitate in denying their baseless, and incorrect faiths and acts. It is possible that he may give up demonstrating his religious rites, fearing that this aid may be stopped. Worst of all, it might cause their hearts to be inclined to them [non-Muslims] and to love them. No doubt, this is a bad impact upon one's belief and one loses his religion for mere material things. This practice is very low and disgraceful.
Allah knows best.