Is It Lawful to Work for a Defense-Linked Aircraft Company?

Answered by Shaykh Irshaad Sedick

Question

I worked as an intern at an aircraft company that mostly built firefighting planes, but it also sold planes for military and surveillance purposes, including to non-Muslim countries and the FBI.

My role was to assign training roles and support staff in transitioning to a new system. I was not involved with the planes themselves or any sales. Does this mean my job was considered disbelief? Was it unlawful, and was the money I earned not allowed?

Answer

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Your job was not an act of disbelief (kufr) in any way, so you can let go of that worry. Sacred Law does forbid selling or supplying weapons that could be used against Muslims, and anyone involved in that would be responsible for their actions. But you were not involved in that. The work you did was lawful, your pay was lawful, and your income was pure.

This Was Not Disbelief

Let’s start with your biggest concern, since it seems to trouble you most. Your work was not kufr. Even if some part of it had been wrong, it would not make you a disbeliever. Disbelief means rejecting Allah (Most High) or something that is clearly part of the religion.

It is about what is in your heart and your beliefs. Getting paid by a company, even if you dislike some of its other activities, does not affect your faith.

Only denying a core belief or showing clear contempt for Islam takes someone out of the faith, and this is always a conscious choice, not something that happens just by working a certain job [Ibn Hajar, al-I’lam bi Qawati’ al-Islam].

You can let go of this fear. It is not based on anything real.

The Principle That Governs Sale and Supply

Sacred Law does not just look at whether something is lawful by itself. It also considers how a person uses it. Allah (Most High) says, “And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and transgression.” [Quran, 5:2]

Imam Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (Allah have mercy on him) said, listing the kinds of sale that fall under this, “Selling grapes, raisins, or similar to someone who will make wine out of them; or wood or the like to someone who will make a musical instrument; weapons to non-Muslims who will use them against us; wine to someone who will drink it (as opposed to selling it to a vinegar maker, for example); or hemp or similar to someone who will use it as a drug.” [Ibn Hajar, al-Zawajir ‘an Iqtiraf al-Kaba’ir]

A firefighting plane is clearly beneficial, and planes themselves are not unlawful. However, if someone knowingly sells a war plane to be used against Muslims, this is exactly what Ibn Hajar described.

The person who sells, brokers, or sources such a plane for that purpose is involved in a forbidden transaction, and their profit is not allowed. This is a serious matter, and anyone in the company who did that work is responsible.

Where You Stood in Relation to It

The prohibition applies to the person directly involved in the transaction who knows of the unlawful use.

It applies to the seller, broker, or person who sources the goods for that reason. It does not apply to everyone who works at the company or receives a salary there.

In our school, the permissibility of your own employment turns on the soundness of your hire contract (ijara), which is a lawful service rendered for a lawful wage, resting on the default that things are permissible unless shown otherwise (al-asl fi al-ashya’ al-ibaha). [Suyuti, al-Ashbah wa al-Naza’ir]

Your service was to assign training roles and move staff onto a new system. That is lawful in itself. It is not sales. It is not sourcing. It is not the manufacture of any plane. It is administrative work that any firm in any industry might need, and it has no connection at all to the transactions Ibn Hajar describes.

The prohibition does not reach you, because you did none of the things the prohibition names.

Your Income

This means your wage was lawful. For example, if someone earns a commission for supplying barley to a brewery, that earning is not allowed because it comes from helping with something forbidden. Your wage is not like that.

You were paid for helping people move to a new training system, which is completely separate from any sales. Allah (Most High) says, “No soul burdened with sin will bear the burden of another.” [Quran, 6:164]

You will not be held responsible for what other divisions did. The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “The lawful is clear and the unlawful is clear, and between them are doubtful matters that many people do not know.

Whoever guards against the doubtful has protected his religion and his honor” [Bukhari; Muslim]. Your earnings were pure.

Principle and Practical Guidance

Carry this principle forward. In our school, you weigh a job by two things and not by tracing every distant use of your employer’s products.

First, was the service you were contracted to do lawful in itself?

Second, was the wage lawful? Yours were both, and your own hands were clean of the sale. The aiding-in-sin that Ibn Hajar warns against is real and serious, but it falls on the one who carries out the transaction, not on the clerk three corridors away.

So do not go back and try to purge money already earned and spent as though it were filth, because it was not.

What you may take forward is a preference, not a ruling. Where a person has the choice, it is more excellent (awla) to earn in a place where no layer of the work troubles the conscience, so that the heart rests completely. You felt unease the moment you learned what the other divisions did.

That unease is a living conscience, and it is a gift. Honor it by choosing cleanly from here, not by punishing yourself for a past that the Sacred Law does not hold against you.

There is something else to consider. The fact that you worry your internship might have been in disbelief shows you hold yourself to a high standard, maybe even higher than what Allah asks of you.

Keep that high standard for your future choices, but do not use it to punish yourself. Allah is not trying to catch you in a mistake. He made what is lawful clear so you can live without fear.

And Allah (Most High) knows best.

[Shaykh] Irshaad Sedick
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Irshaad Sedick was raised in South Africa in a traditional Muslim family. He graduated from Dar al-Ulum al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah in Strand, Western Cape, under the guidance of the late world-renowned scholar Shaykh Taha Karaan (Allah have mercy on him), where he taught.

Shaykh Irshaad received Ijaza from many luminaries of the Islamic world, including Shaykh Taha Karaan, Shaykh Muhammad Awama, Shaykh Muhammad Hasan Hitu, and Mawlana Abdul Hafeez Makki, among others.

He is the author of the text “The Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal: A Hujjah or not?” He has been the Director of the Discover Islam Centre, and for six years, he has been the Khatib of Masjid Ar-Rashideen, Mowbray, Cape Town.

Shaykh Irshaad has fifteen years of teaching experience at some of the leading Islamic institutes in Cape Town). He is currently building an Islamic podcast, education, and media platform called ‘Isnad Academy’ and has completed his Master’s degree in the study of Islam at the University of Johannesburg. He has a keen interest in healthy Prophetic living and fitness.