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She did some training in the Islamic branch of a riba-based bank and she is asking about the ruling on her salary

25-01-2011

Question 153084

About 4 years ago as a part of my MBA program I had to work as an internee in a bank for 3 months. My CV was sent to the bank from my university along with some other students’ CV and the bank selected me as internee. Though it was a commercial bank, the branch where I worked as internee was an Islamic Banking Branch of this bank. In this branch they used Mudaraba system and here the principle was ‘Profit sharing, Loss bearing’; (though in my 3months of internship time I found that some of the banking operations, such as consumer credit, were not running under this principle). 3 other internees were working along with me in this branch. But the bank authority paid only me on daily basis because of my good result in BBA and MBA(1st semester), though I didn’t ask for any payment. I am a complete housewife now and living overseas. Now my question is that was my income of those 3 months haraam? If it was haraam how can I get rid of that sin?.

Answer

Praise be to Allah.

If your work and training were done in the Islamic branch of the commercial bank and you are not certain about whether the bank’s dealing and transactions were haraam, then there is nothing wrong with your having taken money, especially since the branch had a shar‘i committee supervising it. 

Similarly, if the bank had started to turn into an Islamic bank and you yourself did not do any haraam work in it, there is nothing wrong with your having taken any money, because it is permissible to work in such a bank. 

If it becomes clear to you that this branch was doing riba-based transactions and that there that was nothing to differentiate it from a regular commercial bank, and the money you took is still with you, then you should get rid of it by giving it to the poor and needy or spending it on other charitable causes. 

For more information, please see the answer to question no. 81915 

And Allah knows best.

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