My Company Has Some Haram Dealings, Does That Make My Job Haram Ask Shaykh YQ – EP 263

Yasir Qadhi

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Channel: Yasir Qadhi

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Brother Arshak from New York says that he works in a company doing some off doing some office work. And he is saying that some aspects of his company and some of their policies and some of their procedures are unethical, he goes into a lot of detail. But just to be like vague about this, he says that they might change some numbers, you know, on their accounting in order for tax purposes. And you know, it's overlooked. Everybody knows about this. So he says that his actual job is not directly involved in anything that's shady. But he's wondering that, does he come under supporting how long and hence he's worried about his is added to this brother Ridhwan says that he's working as

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an Uber Eats driver. And, you know, as a part of his job, obviously, he's delivering food parcels. And no doubt, sometimes there's going to be some haram in those parcels. He's just picks up the food and he delivers it. And that's his only source of income. So he's wondering the shutter rulings on that. And brother Salmaan says that he's working as a manager in an ice cream factory, and one of or maybe some of the flavors, they add some alcohol to their products. And so he is the manager and he must oversee the entire factory, which includes this aspect of the alcohol. So he's worried is it helpful to work in such a factory as a manager? One

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Now I put all of these questions together. And of course, there's a lot more questions of such a nature. And the overall problem comes that there are people that are working in industries, and there is an element of how long going on somewhere in those industries, and they're all worried about their sustenance, the purity of their risk, the purity of the hardness, if you like, or if you want me to make a pun on it. How risky is the risk is the risk in risky business? So they're worried that are they coming under the prohibition of Islam when Allah says in the Quran, what I will know a little bit about Taqwa wallet, I will know if you know that one, cooperate and goodness and piety

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and do not cooperate in evil and transgression. And of course, this is a basic rule that understood I mean, you should not help somebody do haram right? This is understood. And there are many evidences for this. And again, just so that we are familiar with these evidences, for example, in Sudan, and Asahi, caballero generis, that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam came out to us one day, and you know, we were a group of people, a sitting there, and he said, Listen to me, You shall see after me rulers, that are evil rulers, and whoever enters into those evil rulers, palaces and agrees with them, and helps them in their volume in their injustice, then they have nothing to do

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with me, and I have nothing to do with them. And they shall not drink from my fountain. And whoever does not enter and does not help them and does not do injustice with them and does not affirm their lies, then that is the person who is with me, and I am with him. So this is a Hadith in zona, and an essay, which basically the process was saying, look, the ruler might be evil. If you're helping the ruler, you're also evil. If you're doing directly the loom of the ruler, you're also evil. So this is the whole concept of helping one another in piety, not helping one another in sin and harm. And our profit system also said the famous Hadith, which isn't, you know, the authentic books of the

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Sahaba, that the prophets or some said, whoever calls people to good and guidance shall get the reward of those who follow him without diminishing their reward. And whoever calls people to bad to misguidance the banana shall have the sin of those who are following him without diminishing their own sins, they're all going to be getting the sins so and of course, in the famous Hadith as well, that there are 10 people that are accursed when it comes to alcohol. And he mentioned everybody involved with the trade, right? Even the one who's, you know, transporting it, and the one who's selling it and the one who's buying it and the one who's pouring it. So basically the entire

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industry is accursed is not just the one who drinks it is the one who's giving the bottle of wine, he goes here if this is wine and he gives it out, he's selling it, everybody is good. So clearly, our Shetty wants to shut to the direct avenues of evil. Now, theoretically, that's a great concept. And of course we understand it the point of the Shediac is clear. But the issue then comes that there are many gradations of helping and what exactly does it mean to help in evil? How directly must we be involved in that in order for it to be

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haram and it is a spectrum, no doubt about it that at one level you have pure halal. On the other level level you have pure haram. And in the middle there are going to be gradation, some which will be macro some which will be minors and some which will be a major sin. And if you read the Treatises of our full kaha, one finds that this is something that even our modern Roma, they say that we need to extrapolate more about what exactly does it mean helping in evil, because, as we said, the examples that the books or films typically give are very crystal clear, for example, giving somebody alcohol to drink or selling somebody alcohol, okay. But in our modern world, especially as a

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minority in western lands, pretty much all of our companies with almost without exception, dare I say, without exception, there will be elements of haram in those corporations, there's going to be elements of things that are not ethical or not moral according to our Shediac. So does our being there actually make it? Absolutely, how long are we helping aiding and abetting a corporation in all of its sin if our job is headed, and the fact of the matter is that this is a very detailed discussion, and our modern odema have attempted to extrapolate and given fatawa on a case by case basis, and of the institution of the court, and of the bodies that have attempted to do so is the

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American Muslim jurists Association AMDA, which has discussed this issue in some detail and given some good generic guidelines. But again, these are all generic guidelines. And in a few years ago, they held a conference in which they talked about, you know, this level of injustice or this level of how long and what constitutes the harm upon the individual when the company might be doing something that is haram. And they said, that we can broadly categorize helping one another in evil doing evil, we can broadly categorize it into four categories. Number one, they said MOBA, Shara and Matsuda, it is immediate and it is intended, you are directly involved, and you're intending to be

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involved, it is direct, and it is intended, for example, to give somebody a cup of wine with the intention that that person will directly drink the wine. So you are directly involved, and you're intending for that person to do this. This is category one, category two is that it is direct, but you are not intending. It's not your intention to help but it is still direct. And an example for this is somebody who sells the wine, and the person will drink it later on, you're not directly involved or somebody who sells drug paraphernalia, you know, so there's how you, you know, consume drugs, it involves certain, you know, things that you use, you know, certain things to burn certain

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things to ingest. There is no function of these items, except for drug usage. The person might sell it and say, hey, it's not happening on my premises, right? But this is direct, but it is not intended, right. So this is the second category or to sell a crucifix like there are Muslims that sell crosses and they say, Oh, look, I'm not worshiping other than Allah, I'm simply selling and then they're doing what they are doing. So this is a second category. The third category is that it is intended but it is not direct. You intend to do something haram, but what you are doing is something ambiguous and could be used for Halal but your intention is haram. So for example, you pay

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somebody money to use the money to purchase how to um to purchase drugs to purchase the the alcohol let's say right. So, you might not directly be involved, but you intend to be involved right. So it is intended but it is not direct. So this is the third category and the fourth category they said neither is a direct nor is it intended out of these four they said the first three are all haram okay. It is direct unintended, it is direct and unintended, it is intended, but indirectly. So, all of the and I gave examples for those right. So, if you intend to do something, how long you want to be involved in this how long then clearly it is not allowed. However, if you are doing something

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that inevitably will be haram and it has no purpose except how long like selling drug paraphernalia or selling crucifixes there is no useful you know a thing that is going to happen with these drug pervert nobody purchases these these items except to use for ingesting harmful substances. So for you to get involved in this business, right, it is how I'm completely the fourth category lair MOBA Shara Warlock sola It is neither direct nor is it intended. This is where they said the leeway this was it that said there's a spectrum of opinion and

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They said generically, it would be allowed. And no doubt some would be more haram than others. But generic more. Haram is a harsh word here, any more gray, let's say more ambiguous and maybe leaning towards the Haram than others. But here is where generally speaking, they said in a minority situation, we can be a little bit more lacks. Other scholars have looked at it from different angles. And they have asked us to consider five different things. So to look at five different things before you pronounce the verdict on whether you think your job is haram or valid, we think or we look at it from multiple angles. First and foremost, again, there's some overlap with the

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previous I'm just fatwah. But still, this is another

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researcher that appeals to me. So the this researcher said number one, you look at whether you are directly involved or not, clearly, if you are directly involved in aiding and abetting something that is unethical, that is immoral, that is illegal, something that is haram and are shady or you're directly involved in it. Clearly, this is something that we cannot get out of and say that it is haram to be involved in how long is haram to help the Haram directly. You are directly involved in a murder or the you know a robbery or elaborate you know Ponzi scheme, and you know it and you're involved with it. And you're writing doctoring, the books and everything you're involved in a scam.

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Clearly, if you're in on a plot, then you share the sin of the plot as well. Or if you're removed by some degrees, you are manufacturing knives, okay, you're selling glasses. And the knife can be used to cut vegetables, and somebody can use it to commit a sin and murder. You're selling glasses. Somebody can use the glasses for drinking and halal and somebody can use it for how long this is a generic glass for example, right? So clearly, you look at the one who is directly involved in a very different way than the one who's indirectly so this is the first thing you look at. The second second thing you look at is what is your intention? What is your own frame of mind and intention is

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your intention to get involved in something that is unethical criminal Haram is that the purpose of your career is that the entire career is based around it. Actions are judged by intentions, or you're trying to make something halal. And things are happening beyond your control. It's not your intention is not your goal, it's not there. And no doubt. When you try to maintain your purity, and you try your best to be as helpful as possible, then something happens that is how long it is very different than getting involved in a career that is inherently how long and you know, it is how long and you have no problems with it being how long so we also look at your knee as well as the second

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thing we look at. The third thing we look at is the quantity of this haram. So what if it's indirect and it is not? And so we're going one by one, right? So there's five things Number one, it must be indirect. Number two, it cannot be your intention. Number three, we also look at the quantity of haram. And this is a very key factor, especially in minority situations. Whether the business you're involved with is predominantly unethical, it is lying, it is cheating, it is stealing, or it is incidentally, you know, how long from our perspective. So for example, you know, a question that came to a number of security councils around the federal Council's around the globe is a Security

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Council because the question security the mind my mind was going to Security Security Guard is saying that I have been hired to protect a building to wander around the building. And there's shops, and one of them is a bank. There's an ATM with a bank attached to it right now. My job is security. And I'm wandering around, you know, as a security guard, and there's clothes manufacturing, there's shoes, you know, like any supermarket or mall and there's also a booth that has the bank in it. My job is not just for the bank, it is for the entire shopping mall. And pretty much all of the federal councils around the globe have said that, well this is not an intentional

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direct predominantly how to hum enterprise, your job overall is halal. And there's an element here that definitely is not praiseworthy, because we don't like you know, you know, the banks are involved in riba but your job is protection of civic order. It's not to defend the institution of riba right, we look at what you're doing and that is even the bank is haram but it is also how long to rob the bank just because the bank is doing haram. It doesn't mean that which is giving riba it doesn't mean that it is permissible to then go and rob so if the security guard is being a generic, you know, officer of the law and upholding civic security, well then overall, we shall overlook

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this. Also, I'm the ice cream factory owner by the way, what a great job to be a manager of an ice cream factory. I have to say Brother, I'm kind of jealous of you in a positive way Halal way I love ice cream. So I can only imagine Mashallah. The Perks of your job just you know, eating and taste testing all day on ham didn't I? Mashallah, what a beautiful job there is Masha Allah so our brother who runs an ice cream manufacturing plant, right, Mashallah. He's a manager. Let's say the company hired him. He works his way up and Michelle

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Now he is the, the manager of the factory. Now he is saying, I mean ice cream hamdulillah the bulk of ice cream is hell Alhamdulillah. Right 99% or 95% of the flavors of his company are hella, but there might be one flavor that has added, let's say rum, right? So they add some containers of rum into a vast, you know, amount of alcohol of sorry about ice cream. For us, that flavor would not be allowed. I've given longer lectures about you know, having quantities of alcohol and you can listen to that. But there's no question that when you add alcohol as a flavor to a food, and you want to taste that flavor, that that is how long you add rum, or whiskey or brandy or any type of you know,

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alcoholic drink with the intention of the taste remaining, there is no question that that final substance is held on for us to eat or drink. But now this person is emailing and saying that he is the manager of a factory that is producing the ice cream. And understandably, the bulk of his ice cream is completely halal. But as the manager, he has to sign away all of the you know, the the import and export what's coming in what's coming out and he's overseeing and one element, one of the vats out of hundreds of VAT is going to have the you know, alcohol in it. So we look at now the quantity and whether it is predominantly highlight or whether it is incidental, and the photo of

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Amgen. And most of it, in fact, I do not know of any Federal Council that has given anything to the contrary, that when there is a small amount of how long like this case over here, then we cannot say that the entire job is how long he tries his best to get out of being directly involved. But overall, he is the manager and there's going to be some level of involvement, he cannot just walk away from everything to do with that he's going to sign the sheets, at the end of the day, he's gonna, you know, make sure that everything is happening. So no doubt that that element is definitely not good. But his entire job cannot be made how long simply because one of the flavors of one of the

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ice creams has a percentage of alcohol in it. So this we can say the same applies to the Uber driver, right, or the Uber Eats driver. So the Uber driver, even the Uber driver, let's say, the Uber driver, he is taking passengers, and sometimes the passengers are carrying alcohol with them. So he is helping and transporting alcohol. But here's the point, not only is not that was not his so go back to all three of these, right. So here we have actually in this case, he is directly involved, but it is no intention, he didn't sign up to transport alcohol. And then it is something that is incidental, and the quantity is miniscule. out of 20 passengers a day, maybe one of them

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might be carrying alcohol, and he doesn't even know about it. So it's neither his intention. And it is also a negligible amount. That being the case, the fact we're given is that it is overlooked because he's T didn't. So here's the point, if he signed up to be a truck driver for Budweiser, the Budweiser is the Beer Company of America for those that are watching outside of America. So if he signed up to be a truck driver for Budweiser that is completely haram, but he is now an Uber driver or an Uber Eats and an Uber Eats, he's going to be delivering maybe 50 packages of food, right, the bulk of the food packages are not going to have alcohol in them, maybe one or two are going to, but

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he is signing up to be just the delivery man. And his goal is not to deliver haram and alcohol, his goal is just to be the delivery and to gain some money in this regard. So once again, I'm Jen others have given the fatwa that we overlook a negligible amount here, it's a small amount, it's not his primary thing. It's a incidental it is not Matsuda it's not intended and it is something that is trivial. And so that which is incidental, does not take the same ruling as that which is directed intended. And that which is small quantity does not take the same ruling as that which is the predominant quantity. So this is the third thing that we look at. So the first thing we said is that

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we look at whether it's direct or indirect. The second thing we look at your intention, what is exactly your intention in doing your job. And number three, we look at the quantity number four another thing we look at so one of our brothers emailed in the initial email he asked

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that, you know, they're, you know, basically to be again to be very explicit here, they're kind of fudging the numbers for the IRS or whatever, that they're making some things more or less for, and he feels guilty like why am I involved in all of this? So

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and again, there's no question that you know, we have to be ethical as Muslims, there's no question that as Muslims, we raise the bar and everything should be legit and 100% at the same time when an entire industry is doing something that everybody knows it's kind of an open secret, you know, the shady answers, mammoth be hillbillies, everybody's doing it. Then once again this *ty I will be a little bit more lacks here. So for example, I mean, you know,

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the point here comes that

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when an industry

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is known overall to do something that is not in the best. Following the technical letter of the law, I mean, I'll give you an example, I had a friend, you know, in the fish business fish industry, and you know, they have a whole bunch of laws about the length of the fish and the age or I don't know what I don't know, all of these things are not. And it's well known, he said to me that, you know, they have an 18 inch or 20 inch, or whatever it might be, if it's an half an inch or more, everybody knows, you're not going to be that, you know, pedantic or that accurate, that nobody is going to make a big deal. If we just overlook it. You know, the point is that, and again, I'm being very

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clear here, obviously, we want to obey every single rule as much as possible, at the same time when something like this becomes the norm in an industry, right? So you're saying that in your industry, or whatever it is, for I don't understand for whatever purposes, they, you know, increase the weight of the, you know, the package or whatever, to get some, you know, whatever it might be, you're not involved, you're saying you're doing your job in the office, but you know, that portions of the company are doing things that are in that gray area. So here, once again, we say, actually, in this case, you are not directly involved. In this case, it is not even your intention to do that. And

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also, in this case, it is something that your company, or whatever it is, it's doing something that it should not do. But apparently, this is the norm in that particular industry that everybody knows that goes on, and they kind of sorta turn a blind eye, nobody really gets penalized for, for doing it. So for you to do your halaal job in your cubicle, and your company's doing something outside of your area, and you're not directly involved with you cannot and nobody can say your job becomes haram, because of something the company's doing that is unethical, you obviously should not get involved in that, but to what level of cooperation. So by the way, for example, not directly

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related, but it is still directly related, you know, some of these more, you know, radical militant groups, right, they would justify, you know, the mass, you know, a murder of entire populations, and even the tech feet of Muslims living in non Muslim lands, they would say, You guys aren't Muslim, they would say to us, this is 10 years ago, and all of these these movements were going on, they would say to us, you know, you're not Muslim. Why, what have we done? We're praying Salam Hamdulillah, Quran tahajjud por ser everything. Why are we not Muslim? Because you're living in a land that has done haram, and has invaded and has plundered and pillaged, and you're giving taxes to

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them. And Allah says, do not help in any transgression, transgression, and what not? So notice here, if you were to take this rule to that level, your existence on earth is aiding and abetting some type of injustice, right? It can be also flipped or honus, saying, well, you're buying and selling products that are indirectly supporting the system, you cannot be completely disconnected from human society. And at some level, something can be extrapolated, where you're buying and selling to somebody who's then helping somebody who's doing something to somebody who's doing a haram, you cannot consider an nth degree of separation to make your actual job haram just because you live in

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America or live in a western land that might be doing something militarily your existence does it become our own brothers and sisters, your your entire job and career does not become haram. So we have to also see, you know, the level of distance between you and this hold on how prevalent is it? Is it something that is generic and everybody so by the way, here, in the Hadith, the prophet system said, Whoever enters in upon the volume and helps him is is sinful. However, the entire country of that volume is somehow tacitly in the end of the day, you know, giving their taxes to him, allowing him to exist, the profitsystem did not say the whole country is going to hell, the whole country is

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jahannam. No, because there's levels of cooperation levels of distancing yourself from voting, and the one who enters into the palace willingly knowingly wanting to help believing the lies, supporting the ruler in the womb, cannot be compared to the peasant who's giving the taxes to this tyrannical ruler, and he cannot do anything about that. And so this idea is actually an evidence against those radical groups that the prophets or some only criticize the one who walks into the palace and butters up, the ruler gets involved as entourage that is helping in evil, you cannot take the entire, you know, US population and say you're all leaving the fold of Islam because of this. So

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that's another point we look at. And then the final point that we'll also look to the fifth point will say is what are the alternatives? And is this your only source of income, ie how necessary is this source of income for you and are there alternatives? So we also look at that aspect as well because as the shehryar says, are borrowed or to do because they have that those that are in dire need situations that have lower? You look at the data or you look at the the directness of the situation, and you change the fatwa based upon that, so the person who's living on the streets, and the only job he has is to be in the supermarket and to

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You know, be at the grocery store, and in the grocery store, they will sell pork and they will sell alcohol, we will say to this person, there's no doubt that the default is your job should not be done. But you're living on the streets, for example, you're not being able to pay your rent, okay? In the meantime, do this job, and then make dua to Allah and try to find a high level job. So we'll give a temporary constant concession, because the person has no alternative. So we look at the fifth point as well. And that is how needed is this job versus, for example, a teenager who is living in a comfortable upper middle class home, he just wants some money to, you know, purchase the latest ps4

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or Xbox or, you know, iPad or iPhone, or whatever the latest gadget is, and his parents say, yeah, go ahead and find a job. And you know, we're fine with that. This teenager who doesn't need money to pay rent, we would say to him, No way, you're going to be bagging, how long you're going to be selling alcohol? And even if the grocery store has 90% halal, but the alcohol is or why would you do that you don't need the money, go find a job that is, you know, not selling alcohol, because selling alcohol is obviously you're picking up the bottle and you're scanning it and you're selling it. Clearly, that's not something that God wants you to do. So all of these five points will be looked

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at and look yourself to your brother or your sister and your corporation in your career and try your best to minimize and in the end of the day factor Allah Mr. Thought, don't fear Allah as much as you can be reasonable, Don't be unreasonable, and understand the difference between intending haram and the predominant career that is held on and aiding and abetting haram directly versus distancing yourself and something happening in your vicinity. In your corporation, you're not exactly involved with it, your job itself is held out there's many factors to look at. And if we were to go to the nth degree, then in reality, every single one of our lives basically in the entire world, we can

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extrapolate something is happening that we're doing, aiding and abetting to the nth degree something how long the Shetty has not unreasonable, fear Allah as much as you can be reasonable. Ask the scholars of your locality and ask the other people in your field as well about your concerns and see what they say. Generally speaking, as we said, miniscule amounts of incidental and unintentional

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things that are not allowed in the Sharia shall be overlooked as long as the bulk of your career is halal. And you're doing that which is highlighted you're being paid for that which is headed then for double Lahoma So Tom, and may Allah subhanho wa Taala make it easy for all of us to earn a hell at risk and Allah subhanho wa Taala knows best

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