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Ruling on giving a kickback or bribe to a consulting engineering company if they give them a project contract

19-10-2023

Question 262618

I own a contracting company and I want to run my business in a manner that pleases Allah; I do not want to begin my project with anything that Allah has forbidden. I intended to give some money as a gift to anyone who brings projects to our company, because I cannot get any work, since the consulting engineering companies have engineers who do not advise their clients to go to any contracting companies except those who give a kickback to these engineers in return for awarding their contracts to their companies. I do not know whether it is permissible to pay this money to these engineers, especially since they take it without the knowledge of the owners of these engineering consultancy companies. Is it permissible for me to pay this kickback to them? Is it permissible to give it to someone else?

Answer

Praise be to Allah.

There is nothing wrong with you giving money to someone who brings business to your company, whether to an ordinary person or to a consultancy.

As for giving this kickback to the engineers who work in the consultancies, without the knowledge of the company owners, that is not permissible, because this is helping them in betraying the owner of the company.

This is a summary of what our shaykh, ‘Abd ar-Rahman al-Barrak (may Allah, may He be exalted, preserve him), said.

And Allah knows best.

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