Permissible and Impermissible employment

Earning by helping university students write their assignments, reports and research papers.

Q: I am a single mother (not divorced) living with my parents. I do not pay rent or utility bills, but I manage all other expenses for myself and my baby, including food, clothes, diapers, milk, etc. 

The baby’s father sends a small amount (around 20,000 PKR) monthly — sometimes not even that. 

I work from home and earn about 1.5 lakh PKR per month by helping university students write their assignments, reports, and research papers. I use tools like ChatGPT to generate answers and then rephrase the content using other software. I work very hard and honestly, but now I’m very worried: Is this income halal or haram in Islam? 

I want to raise my son as a Hafiz-e-Quran and a good Muslim. I don’t want to feed him with haram money, but this is the only source of income I have right now. I am very stressed and confused. Please guide me according to Islamic teachings.

Earnings of a person who works for a company that has some wrong dealings

Q: If I become an electrical engineer and my company takes interest from a bank, will my income be haram? 

If I become an electrical engineer and the company does something haram in a way that they think it's halal (since they don’t know that saying haram is halal is shirk), will I become a disbeliever or sinner for working in that company? 

If my company works with another company that does haram activities or considers haram as halal (since they have no idea that calling haram halal is shirk), then for working in such companies, will I become a disbeliever or sinner? Will my income be haram? Will having the desire to work in such companies make me a disbeliever or sinner? 

If the people in my company are Muslim but they commit shirk or make mockery of Islam, or if they work with companies that do such things — then will I become a disbeliever or sinner for joining those companies? 

And if those companies are at a very high level and offer a handsome salary, will wanting to work there make me a disbeliever or sinner?

Recruiting a teacher to teach music

Q: If a female works for a recruitment company for schools (they provide teachers to schools) and these temporary teachers can be provided for any class such as music, English, business, maths (it’s not for a specific lesson). Is their income halal even if we know that they will be supplying teachers for a music lesson?

Driving non-mahrams

Q: Where I'm working, I know the people quite well. I've been working here for about 3 years or so now. 

They give me duties to do, example, to take their mother or wife or sister to go shopping or to transport them from one place to another. 

I personally don't like doing that because they are non mahram. My wife gets angry with me when I do those things and she doesn't speak to me. 

If I do tell my boss that I can't do those duties, I know personally they will fire me or treat me differently although they are Muslims. What should I do?

Forging a document to earn a job

Q: To qualify for CA (Chartered Accountant) in Bangladesh, one has to pass 17 papers and also complete 2 or 3 or 4 years of article ship (practical training). Now my friend has passed the CA exam by passing all the 17 papers by giving the exam in the most ethical manner as possible but he did a dummy article ship (forged article ship documents). 

Now he got a halal job because he is a qualified CA. Without doing the article ship, one cannot give the last level of CA exam (last three exams). Is his income halal as he forged the article ship document?