Purifying pension fund account from Riba

1-4-2015 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalaamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu,I am a salaried employee and as per the government rules a part of my salary goes to my PF account, and this is compulsory. Every year on 31st March based on the amount in my PF account, some interest (riba) is added. It is not possible for me to remove this interest from my account monthly(in order to clean my money from interest(riba)), as the PF account is not similar to my savings account. The money in the PF account can only be removed during emergencies or after my retirement from job.I would like to know if I can clean my money in the PF account by removing the exact amount of money(added as interest in my PF account) from my savings account and give it as charity every month? Will this make my final amount in PF after my retirement clean(free from riba)?Jazakallah

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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, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

First of all, we appreciate your desire to avoid what is forbidden and your concern not to commit it, and you are right in doing so. We have already clarified how to get rid of unlawful money in Fataawa 87149 and 275392, so please refer to them.

You may get rid of the usury in the manner you mentioned: by giving out the estimated/exact amount of it from your money, because the prohibition is not associated with the money itself, so if you give out the exact amount, it becomes permissible for you to use all the money saved in your account.

Ibn Taymiyyah said in his Fataawa: "The money that is acquired in a forbidden manner, if it is mixed with lawful money, it is obligatory to give out from it (the whole money) the amount of unlawful money, and the amount that remains of the money is lawful to him."

Allaah Knows best.