Bilal Assad – Can a muslim deliver haram food for a wage

Salaam Alaikum, a question has come my way from someone who works

in food delivery, and he is asking, sometimes he has to

deliver food in which he discovers that there is pork in it. So does

this make his job haram, or does it remain halal? I ask Allah to

assist me in answering this question. It is an important

question, and I think we can branch off in other areas as well,

of those who are in this same predicament. So for a Muslim, and

of course, I'm talking from an Islamic viewpoint here, we all

know that there are certain foods which Allah has forbidden, such as

pork,

obviously, wine and alcohol and various other things that may

occur that are forbidden in a person's workplace. So I can only

quote what the scholars have said in their viewpoint and summarize

them to you. After long research, we found that first of all, the

person has to look at the type of job that they are doing, whether

it is halal or haram. If a job cannot be completely halal, then

they have to resort to a job which may involve some haram. Then we

have to also look at a person's necessity situation. How much in

need are they of a job which has haram in it? And for some people,

they may need a job which is completely haram, but they're in

such a dire need that they have no other options. So I'll try to

answer all these points. First of all, for the person who's

delivering food, and sometimes has to deliver pork, then the answer

to that is, this the job that you're doing if it's generally

halal. So basically delivering food that is a halal job. Then the

scholar said, we look at the exceptions and see what we can do

about it. So if at times you have to deliver pork, then the first

question that we need to ask is, can you avoid it? If you can avoid

it without any repercussions, without any harm to your job or to

your

livelihood or to your reputation and so on, then you should and

must avoid delivering pork or even wine or anything like that. But if

you find that you're going to be harmed from it, and this is your

livelihood, then you can deliver it if you didn't know that that is

what it is, and there is no harm or sin upon you if you did know

that it was pork and that you were going to deliver pork and you

couldn't avoid it or it was going to harm your

livelihood. Then again, the scholars have already told us that

this falls under the case of necessities dictate exceptions.

This is a common rule in islam al darubba rat necessities allow for

exceptions. And then when you give your zakat, you know the yearly

zakat that you give for your accumulated excess wealth, then

that also purifies any wealth that was mixed with any haram wealth

that was mixed with Halal wealth. That's if you have to pay your

zakat. And that is the purpose of zakat. I'm talking to both men and

women in this case with no differences. But if the job that

you're working at, the delivery is primarily haram food, let's say a

person is working to deliver primarily poor products, and then

the other way is true every now and then, with the exception some

halal food is delivered, then obviously that work is haram

because it's primarily based on haram deliveries. The only

exception to a job like that is the case of necessity. If you are

in dire need and you are unable to find another job that is primarily

halal, then obviously, in Islam, again, necessities allow for

exceptions, but what you have to do is actively trying to find

another job that is more halal for you, and that is what our Islam

is. It is flexible, it is wide, and it takes into consideration

people's different circumstances in relation to some people who do

other things, other than food delivery. You might be working at

a factory or at a industry or job in whatever you're working at, you

could be places where you're working with stacking food or

shelving or in the warehouse or selling or at the cash register or

the whatever it is. You could be a cleaner, and you happen to have to

have, have to sort of pack haram products on the shelves, let's

say, or maybe while cleaning, if you're a cleaner, you have to

clean certain areas of a supermarket where they sell

alcohol, or you may have to scan some items with customers that

could be haram. Then again, we look at the same principle, is the

primary job halal? Then yes, so let's say, for example, 80% to 90%

of the job is halal, which is food and people's food and drink and

buying and the other needs of their livelihood, then we say this

job is halal. And again, if you cannot avoid it, or if it will

harm you in some way, and you cannot find a completely Halal job

otherwise, then that is a.

Pay for you as well, and you are exempt Inshallah, and your zakat,

which you pay yearly, purifies that wealth as well. Now I'm not

going to go into too many other areas, because we'll end up

talking a lot, and we'll get into a bit of controversies, and some

of the answers, which I may not be able to answer very clearly in

certain specific areas of work and employment or business, that's

another story. But I hope that you did understand the general rule. I

repeat it once again. The general rule is, if you are in need of a

job and there's no alternative and that job is completely haram, then

it depends on the necessity situation. If you have to work it

for your livelihood and there's no other way, then you work there

temporarily until you find a more Halal job. If your job is

primarily halal and there are some haram that may come your way, if

you can avoid it, then you must avoid it. If you can't avoid it,

or it will harm you. If you do avoid it, then Inshallah, you are

exempt, and your zakat will purify, I hope inshallah that

answers your question. Wa salam alaikum, warahmatullahi,

wabarakatuh.