Selling lawful food to non Muslims

2-2-2011 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalamaualikum, dear brothers and sisters, is living in the West Haram? i had a discussion with a friend who works as a taxi driver, his job involves sometimes(30%) picking up people from their home taking them for drink ( alchole) to a pub or bar or sometimes picking up prostitutes and taking them for their business and bringing them back home. i think a Muslim should refrain from such work as he is contributing to Munkar or sin, but he insists that if his work is Haram then every work in the West is haram and no matter what sort of a job you have even a restaurant serving halal food it will still be eating by drunk or bad people. Or even if you work with disable people as i do still you get your salary from government and that is Haram too since the West is engaged in an indirect war against Muslim. Please provide full answer with evidence from the Quran and Sunnah

Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) is His slave and Messenger.

What your friend said is a clear fallacy by which he wants to justify to himself the forbidden work that he does. In fact, a taxi driver taking a man while knowing that he will go to a bar to consume alcohol [or all kinds of intoxicants] or a woman while knowing that she will go to someone to commit Zina (fornication/adultery) with her, then all this is forbidden as it is a direct cause of committing sin and a direct aiding in it. Indeed, such matters are forbidden by the Sharee’ah as in the Hadeeth in which the Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) said: “Allaah has cursed wine, its presser, the one who demands it to be pressed, its drinker, its carrier, the one to whom it is conveyed, its server, its seller, its buyer, the one who consumes its price, its purchaser and the one for whom it is purchased.” [At-Tirmithi and Ibn Maajah]

These are reasons that lead to consuming alcohol and a clear help to the one who wants to consume it; it is for this reason that those who do any of what is mentioned in the above Hadeeth are cursed. For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 116436 and 90289.

As regards the one who sells lawful food for dissolute people, or he who does a lawful job for them, then his work is lawful and his salary is lawful as he did not cause their sin or help them in it.

For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 90518, 81686 and 86405.

Allaah Knows best.

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