The actual role

Is the job itself haram with the following factors?

The job must not directly deal directly with any haram factors like:

1. Alcohol (surah nahl ayat number 90)

2. Gambling(surah nahl ayat number 90)

3. Job income must not come from anything that is intrinsically from ‘chance’ like a raffle (Majmoo‘ al-Fatawa, 32/223) 

4. Haram meat (surah baqarah ayat number 173)

5. Anything coitally related

usery(interest)(surah baqarah ayat 278)

Does the job have interest involved directly with your job?

If your income has interest directly involved in it; meaning your paycheck rather than the percentage of the company’s revenue that it makes from interest-it is haram.  However if it is difficult for you to leave- you should give the percentage of your income that is haram to charity.   If you cannot do so without financial difficulty you should contact an islamic scholar for a bespoke fatawah.

Screening stocks and shares

Whilst we are not financial advisors and wouldn't feel comfortable with advising you on information around this area, there are plenty of useful links which can be found on the IFG website which gives you a more details answer for this. Financial implications will cross over when considering your stance on this. Working with your Teacher or Imran will help you decipher if these are valid for you.

However some things to start looking at may include:

There are 5 screening factors that have to be taken into account when seeing if a stock or share is halal.

1. Business

Is the business core activities haram related.eg a haram butcher shop or a wine shop.

2. Income from non-sharia compliant investments

Q- What about when the overall business is halal, but the company also has haram elements involved in the running of it? This can be because they have an element of interest-based income or they are borrowing on interest, for example. This is known as income from non-Sharia compliant investments.

A - The rule of thumb is that the income from these Haram investments cannot exceed 5% of the gross revenue of the company. So there are two figures to check here: 

•  income from non-sharia compliant investments

•  gross revenue

First the investor has to check the annual reports to determine what percentage of haram income was received and give away that same percentage of his profits to charity for. This will typically be very hard to find as companies rarely state where each part of their revenue is spent or earned; for example they will not state that 5% of our income came from alcohol. You will have to find or research about it yourself. The second and final condition is that the investor must voice his opposition to these Haram activities, either written or orally, perhaps at the annual shareholder meeting.

Some examples of jobs and possible implications to consider.

-Shop cashier or trade 

This is if the shop or trade  doesn't sell or make haram things mainly(in this example a supermarket will be halal)  If a shop sells alcohol/ smoking/pork/haram meat/anything intoxicating like recreational drugs then it will be haram.

-Investment banker

As an actuary you are doing a job that is halal per se (assessing risks, modelling), so again the second position can be applicable. Even in banks, there are a wide number of departments. If you are working in an investment bank on the trading floor buying and selling shares, that is probably okay compared to if you are brokering interest-based deals, which is highly likely not.

-Administration staff

This would be permissible(halal) as it is directly related to your labour however if it includes any of the 2 factors above-it will be haram  (impermissible).