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