Can I Live at My Father’s House despite the Fact That His Income Is Not Halal?
Hanafi Fiqh
Answered by Mawlana Ilyas Patel
Question
I am from Pakistan. I work in the UK as an engineer. My father is a senior manager at a bank in Pakistan. One of the reasons I came to the UK was to get out of his source of impermissible income, although he paid for all my education. I was relieved to be able to eat halal in my life, finally.
Now, it’s been a while since I have been home, and I wonder, would it be permissible to stay at my father’s house knowing that his income isn’t halal? I have nowhere else to go in Pakistan, and I’ve been in the UK for only two years.
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate
I pray you are well. May Allah (Most High) reward you for seeking to earn and consume from the halal, amin.
It would be permissible to stay with your parents, but not eat from there. If the entire income or most of it is from unlawful sources, it will not be proper to eat there.
As this is your parents’ house that you will be living in, go with high intention, maintaining parents’ rights, strengthening parent relations, and upholding Prophetic excellence of character in your dealings and conduct. Also, with this intention, I suggest you send sufficient money, in fact extra, to your parents as a gift from your halal source of income and assume the food you will eat will be sourced from it. [Taqi Usmani, Fiqh al-Buyu]
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I pray this helps with your question.
Wassalam,
[Mawlana] Ilyas Patel
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Mawlana Ilyas Patel is a traditionally-trained scholar who has studied in the UK, India, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey. He started his early education in the UK. He went on to complete the hifz of the Quran in India, then enrolled in an Islamic seminary in the UK, where he studied the secular and ‘Aalimiyya sciences. He then traveled to Karachi, Pakistan. He has been an Imam in Rep of Ireland for several years. He has taught hifz of the Quran, Tajwid, Fiqh, and many other Islamic sciences to children and adults onsite and online extensively in the UK and Ireland. He taught at a local Islamic seminary for 12 years in the UK, where he was a librarian and a teacher of Islamic sciences. He currently resides in the UK with his wife. His interest is a love of books and gardening.
