Permissible and Impermissible employment

Working as a chartered accountant

Q: I have a doubt... sometimes chartered accountants have to record the interest (riba)of a company. The chartered accountant is not involved in that dealing nor he is present in that meeting nor has he witnissed it, but he has to record it as he has to manage other accounts of the company also. So will he also be responsible? Is that also haraam?

Working in a bank & government pension

Q: My father is 68 years old now. He was working as a manager at a government bank for more than 40 years. When he was in his 20's he joined the bank because of the financial problems which his family encountered. At the bank he served plenty of positions such as cashier, assistant manager, credit controller, risk manager, etc. He quit his job at this bank 8 years ago. Now he is working at our village in Baithuz Zakath and Baithul Maal organizations. I would like to present the following points:

• He has never given money for interest (Riba) for him

• He has never borrowed for interest (Riba) for him

• All what he done was he did his job at the bank.

• During his top management career, he was very interested in Islamic banking and tried to introduce Islamic banking system in his bank (At that time, there was no bank to conduct Islamic banking services. Very Recently, his bank started Islamic banking services to its customers. They used my father’s proposals and other documents to start this service)

• He did that job as his livelihood

• Till now, he gets pension from his bank (since his bank is a fully government owned entity, all the funds are directly coming from the treasury)

• He uses his knowledge in banking to uplift the Baithuz Zakath and Baithul Maal organizations in our city. (Many other villages are impressed with his Baithuz Zakath Organization Model. They meet him and get advices and support as well)

• He is very pious. He never misses any of his prayers.

Now I am writing my questions:

1. Is that pension money which my father gets from the bank haraam?

2. If it is haraam, what are the remedies ? (The money which he gets from Baithuz Zakath is not enough for him to meet his day to day needs.

3. Was his job (Banking Job) haraam? 

Becoming an estate agent

Q: Can I be an estate agent? These are some of the things this job may entail, however, I’m a junior so my tasks may increase as I get more experienced:

• First point of customer contact

• Providing customer information about services and fees

• Discussing features and benefits of the service with customers

• Generating sales memos

• Ensuring documents are sent to relevant parties

• Creating and updating files

• Checking references