May My Son Audit a Company That Makes or Sells Alcohol?
Shafi'i Fiqh
Answered by Shaykh Irshaad Sedick
Question
My son has joined an auditing firm and has been assigned to perform the external financial audit of a company that manufactures or sells alcohol. He has no part in making, selling, or promoting alcohol. Is the audit permissible? Is independent verification different from assisting in alcohol transactions? Is his salary from a firm with such clients sound? If the audit is impermissible, should he ask for another client?
Summary Answer: In the Shafiʿi school, performing an external financial audit of an alcohol company is permissible, because the audit is a lawful service that verifies records and has no share in producing, selling, or promoting alcohol. The firm’s fee from such a business is disliked, but his salary from the firm is lawful. Asking to be assigned elsewhere is a commendable precaution, but he is not obliged to.
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate.
May Allah bless your son in his work and reward you for your concern for what he earns.
In the Shafiʿi school, it is permissible for your son to perform this audit, and his salary is lawful.
Verifying Records Is Different from Helping in Sin
Allah Most High says, “Cooperate with one another in goodness and righteousness, and do not cooperate in sin and transgression.” [Quran 5:2; Khattab, The Clear Quran] The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Allah has cursed wine, the one who drinks it, the one who serves it, the one who sells it, the one who buys it, the one who presses it, the one for whom it is pressed, the one who carries it, and the one to whom it is carried.” [Abu Dawud] Each of them has a hand in the wine itself.
Imam Ibn Hajar Haytami (Allah have mercy on him) explains that an act leading to sin is unlawful when one thinks it probable that it will be used for that sin. [Ibn Hajar Haytami, Tuhfat al-Muhtaj] An external audit gives an independent opinion on whether the financial statements are fairly presented. It makes, sells, carries, and promotes nothing. The audit report serves shareholders, lenders, tax authorities, and the public, and the alcohol is produced and sold with or without it. So the audit is none of the acts the hadith curses.
Your son should still decline any task that serves the alcohol trade directly, such as designing its marketing, structuring its sales, or advising on how to grow them.
Payment from a Business Whose Income Is Mostly Unlawful
Imam Nawawi (Allah have mercy on him) states that dealing with someone whose wealth is mostly unlawful is disliked. [Nawawi, Rawdat al-Talibin] Dealing becomes unlawful only when one knows that the specific money one receives is itself unlawful. An audit fee paid from a company’s general accounts falls under dislike, not prohibition.
His Salary from the Firm
Your son is paid by the firm for lawful work, from revenue drawn from many clients. His salary is lawful. By the same principle, serving clients whose business is unlawful in part does not make the firm’s wages unlawful.
Asking for Another Assignment
Since the audit is permissible, he is not obliged to request a change. If he can ask for another client without harming his standing, that is the better course, and a reflection of scrupulousness (waraʿ). If the firm cannot accommodate him, he may complete the audit with a clear conscience.
Principle and Practical Guidance
Sacred Law judges a person by what his own hands do. Your son verifies figures; he doesn’t sell anything. Let him do the work with excellence and integrity, ask for other clients where he can, keep away from any task that serves the trade itself, and give some charity from his earnings in gratitude.
And Allah (Most High) knows best.
Irshaad Sedick
Related Answers
One. Is It Permissible To Work as an Auditor if It Involves Entering Casinos? — Shaykh Irshaad Sedick: An auditor may serve a company with some impermissible operations, so long as the audit itself is permissible and he does not directly help with those operations.
Two. Is It Lawful to Work for a Defense-Linked Aircraft Company? — Shaykh Irshaad Sedick: The wage was lawful because the job itself was separate from the forbidden sale of weapons.
Three. Working as an Accountant When Interest Transactions Are Involved — Mufti Taqi Usmani: Recording a client’s interest transactions does not fall under the hadith’s curse, but directly arranging interest-based dealings is prohibited.
النصوص · Source-Texts
[ابن حجر الهيتمي، تحفة المحتاج]
«ومثل ذلك كل تصرف يفضي لمعصية كبيع مخدر لمن يظن أكله المحرم له»
[النووي، روضة الطالبين]
«دعاه من أكثر ماله حرام، كرهت إجابته كما تكره معاملته. فإن علم أن عين الطعام حرام، حرمت إجابته»
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. Shaykh Irshaad received Ijaza from many luminaries of the Islamic world, including Shaykh Taha Karaan, Mawlana Yusuf Karaan, 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 served as the Director of the Discover Islam Centre and Al Jeem Foundation. For the last five years till present, he has served as the Khatib of Masjid Ar-Rashideen, Mowbray, Cape Town. Shaykh Irshaad has thirteen years of teaching experience at some of the leading Islamic institutes in Cape Town. He is currently building an Islamic online learning 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 living and fitness.
