I am a second year accounting major, and I came across a older fellow in the masjid who informed me about the hazardousness of accounting in Islam.
Though practicing Accounting itself is not haraam but in the western world (and in muslim countries in some cases) the involvement of interest can make it haraam.
Anything which has to do with interest, whether you are the recepient, spender or the one who prepares financial reports, involving interest in all these aspects is labled haraam.
Though he offered me some proofs from some of the Ahadiths, I did not have much time to check it out.
Does anyone know if this is true, practicing accounting with the involvement of interest being haraam in Islam?
If one were to use such logic, it would also rule out working in any North American company, as majority of the companies are involved with interest in one form or another.
I once did speak to a sheikh about it. My question was why only ignore working at a bank and not other companies where there's riba involved. To that I was told that banks, near-banks, and other such financial institutions are the ones that set or implement interest rates and directly have a lot to do with it. By working for such institutions, we would be supporting them. On the contrary, other companies are not directly involved, therefore, it is alright to work for other companies so long as they aren't directly involved in setting and dealing with interest.
The analogy that I was given was more or less that working at a bank is equivalent to working for a serial killer to load his gun. You know that he would be using it to harm other humans. Whereas, working for other companies not directly related to riba-based activities is working at a gunshop. People could be coming in purchase guns for hunting, fishing or other purposes.
Similarly, there's nothing wrong with growing and selling grapes; however, it may not be the best idea to be working for a liquor store.
I'm not the best individual when it comes to explaining things, but I hope it helps. :\
The system of riba is deeply entrenched in every facet of western society. Case in point: The current inflationary pressures are curbed using raising of interest rates by the Fed (FOMC). When you put your money in a sock and not take interest, you lose purchasing power of your money due to two things 1) printing of money as part of monetary policy (continual), and 2) inflation. So, some muslims will argue that if you live in a society where your money is constantly eroding in value, what is a muslim to do, but to at least protect the present value of money that he rightfully earned.
Having said that, I would like to say that Sadiyah raised a couple of intersesting points. I do, however, differentiate between regular companies (widget seller) and financial institutions (banks, investment banks). Most companies do deal with riba (debt on their books, cash in escrow, interest rate swaps), but that is not their principal business, but they do it to maximize shareholder value; whereas, financial institutions use the system of riba as their staple business strategy. Therefore, I think working for microsoft as a nerd programmer is lesser evil than working for a Goldman Sachs.
Off topic and inspired by reference to the serial killer story, A cabbie friend of mine once asked me an ethical question for which i had no answer. Here is the question: If you were a cabbie in the New York city, would you refuse to drop a person off if you found out that he was heading to bar or a strip club?
You’ll be surprised. My father has been in the Islamic banking business for many years and I hear tidbits from him regularly.
You do get some Islamic scholars, such as those hired by Citibank’s Islamic banking division, who would agree with what you said. They consider Microsoft to be pretty much a halal business because riba isn’t what their line of business is.
Other Islamic Scholars, such as those on the payroll of Citibank’s Saudi partner the Saudi American Bank, state that Microsoft is absolutely haraam. The reason? Microsoft has ENORMOUS cash reserves that sit in bank accounts generating interest. This interest forms a fairly large chunk of Microsoft’s annual revenue.
These scholars feel that this makes Microsoft similar to banks because both rely on riba for profit.
working in Any COMPANY which has a major portion OF its income coming from interst is not advisable as it is more then possible that what you earn is being paid off from the interest income.
As once an Alim told me * Interst is like a poison to your eeman, no matter whether you eat it intentionaly or not, it will effect your eeman *
However in cases of financial institutions whose main bussiness is interst , working in such organisations is haram according to ulema-