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Fatwa CenterWorking in a company that partially deals in interest
Question
Assalaamu alaykum. I have send a question earlier about invoices, and you referred me to a similair question, and your answer to that question was that it is permissble for that person to use payment merchants that accept invoices to be able to accept money online, even if it may result in interest (when setting up a company) because the transaction is between the customer and the payment merchant. However, my question was a little different. My question is whether it is permissble to work as an employee in a company that deals with invoices and charge their customers, even if you are not dealing with it directly? For example, your job is to sell products or to teach, but the company is charging their customers or requires extra money from them if they delay their payments or interrupt their contracts or deals. Is it haram to work for those companies? I have read a fatwa that says that it is not permissble to work for an interest-based company, even if you are not dealing with it directly yourself. Now, if invoices may result in interest, would it be haram to work for a company that uses invoices? Or is that not the same thing? I want to know the answers to these questions because there are a lot of companies in the West that use invoices and so on. May Allaah bless you.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
If the duties of the employee in this company are lawful and do not involve any direct engagement in prohibited acts or helping others to engage in them, then there is no harm for him to work in this company. The fact that some prohibited acts are committed in the company does not affect the permissibility of working in it (unless he is directly involved in prohibited activities). This does not contradict the prohibition of working in institutions whose activities are mostly prohibited such as usurious banks, commercial insurance companies, gambling casinos, wineries, and the like because working in such institutions entail direct involvement in prohibited acts and helping others to commit them. Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression.} [Quran 5:2]
Nevertheless, if the company's activities are permissible but it may engage in some forbidden activities as well, like many of the commercial and industrial companies, restaurants and the like, then the basic principle is that it is permissible for the Muslim to work in this company even if some of its activities are forbidden, provided that his work does not directly involve engaging in any prohibited acts or helping others to engage in them.
Allaah knows best.
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