As An Owner of a Digital Marketing Agency, Can I Run Ads for Real Estate and Roofing Companies Who Provide Customers Installments with Interest?

Answered by Mawlana Ilyas Patel

Question

I own a digital marketing agency, and my agency runs Google ads for roofing companies and real estate agents mainly located in the UK, USA, and Canada. We help them get more clients. Some roofing companies provide financing facilities to their customers. The customers can pay in installments but with interest. Is it permissible for me to help them get more clients?
Similar dealings are involved in the real estate industry. Mortgages, Loans, and interests are involved in this industry as well. Even though we have nothing to do with it and only help them find people looking to buy or sell property, those agents are involved in these activities. Is it permissible to run ads for them and to help them get more clients?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

I pray you are in good faith and health. Thank you for your question.

Owning a digital marketing company would be permissible if your agency runs ads for a good mix of companies. However, it would be best to avoid taking on bank advertisements.

This would be permitted because your actual work of advertising is for the company’s main sale, roofing, and real estate, which in itself is a permissible commodity rather than their services of acquiring it through interest-based installments. Thus, it would be permissible.

The permissibility of income is based on the work itself; as long as it is permissible and one does it by fulfilling the tasks, one’s income will be halal.

[Zayla’i, Tabyin al-Haqa’iq]

In the Hanafi school, the degrees of assisting another in sin are:

a. direct assistance in sin

b. indirect assistance in sin

c. possible cause for sin.

[IbnʿAbidin, Radd al-Muhtar; Nahlawi, Durar al-Mubaha; Usmani, Fiqh al-Buyu]

I would like you to go through the valuable answers and links below. You will receive guidance and direction in sha Allah.

Related

• Can I Help a Bank Drive More Website Traffic? – SeekersGuidance
• Is It Considered Assisting in Sin to Develop Software for Casinos, Banks, or Insurance Companies? – SeekersGuidance
• Provision and Work: A Reader
• What Are the Principles of Work and Assisting in Sin? [Video]

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.