Ruling on working as an accountant in a company calculating the amount of riba, and he may not be able to find any other work

Praise be to Allah.

We put this question to Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen, may Allah preserve him, who replied as follows:

No, that is not a kind of being forced to do something.

Question:

You mean that the threat of being sacked is not a kind of being forced?

Answer:

It is not a kind of being forced, because this is not the only kind of work that Allah created.

Question:

But from people’s experience, a man may look for work for a year or two years, with debts piling up all the time, and never finding any work in all that time. Could this be a reason for adopting a lenient attitude and allowing people to take this kind of work?

Answer:

No, this is not an excuse, because if it were, we could say that the poor man who needs money to build a house or get married would be allowed to deal with riba (and this is not the case). And Allah knows best.