Ruling on withdrawing from an employment contract

21-8-2014 | IslamWeb

Question:

Salam , i am visiting the site for the first time with a hope to get an answer for my question. If a person has signed a bond or an agreement with his employer that he is willing to serve for a mentioned period to serve the organisation and latter on he finds the job not satisfactory and wants to leave .Now the organisation is not letting him leave before the bond period expires i-e 15 years . Can he leave his job breaking his oath but at the same time is leaving all his funds and pensions etc just to get freedom and try his luck somewhere else to get better job.

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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, is His slave and messenger.

This is considered an Ijaarah (hiring) contract; the employee is called “Ajeer,” i.e. the one hired by the employer. The Ijaarah contract (hiring agreement) is a binding contract and it cannot be cancelled by either party whenever he wishes without the consent of the other party except for a legitimate reason.

Hence, it is impermissible for the employee to annul the Ijaarah contract merely because the job turned out to be unsatisfactory and does not meet his career aspirations unless the employer consents to it. However, there is no problem if the employee and the employer agree to cancel the Ijaarah agreement in return for the employee giving up some of his rights.

For more information, please refer to Fataawa 127106 and 195839.

 Allaah Knows best.