Providing Consultancy and Software Design in Capital Markets Industry

4-7-2001 | IslamWeb

Question:

I'm working for a company providing consultancy and software design and implementations to actors in the capital markets industry (banks, clearing and settlement companies, central depositories, stock exchanges...). Is there anything to say on that in Islamic perspective?

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Answer:

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.

 

No doubt that the ruling concerning the means to achieve something is the same as the one concerning the objectives in that thing. The scholars are agreed that selling grapes to the person who makes liquor from them is forbidden. Allah Says (what means): {And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression.} [Quran 5:2]

It is narrated that a farmer who was working on land belonging to the companion Sa’d Ibn Abu Waqass told Sa’d that the grapes they collect from that farm cannot be made into raisins, and could only be pressed and processed into alcohol.

Sa’d ordered that all those grape trees be uprooted and he said: “Miserable be this old man! If he sells alcohol.”

So, if these programs are produced and sold in markets and can be used for lawful and unlawful means, then there is no harm in that. But if you know that these consultancies and designs are made for Riba (interest and/or usury) banks or insurance companies and the like, then it is unlawful for you to work in them or help in providing them as this could be a help in making Riba easy.

Allah knows best.