Is It Sinful to Work for Banks and Insurance Companies as an Ethical Hacker

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

I work as a penetration tester which involves hacking into company systems and finding vulnerabilities to protect them. (With consent.)

Some of my clients are banks and insurance companies. Although I have seen many answers related to this question I would like to ask on my own behalf if I am sinful for providing security services to such companies.

For more context, I work as a contractor, meaning I have no control over which company I will perform the job for. I am not directly involved in any of the activities of such companies except protecting their assets as part of an agreement.

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Short Answer

It is permissible to work for a bank and/or insurance company helping them with the security of their computer systems. [Taqi Usmani, Fiqh al-Buy’u]

It is, however, better to abstain, if one has the freedom to make that choice without undue difficulty arising, such as losing their job. [Ibid.]

Details on the Answer

Banks offer a variety of services. Some of these services are permissible and others are prohibited. As a consequence of this, the wealth of the bank is a mixture of permissible and prohibited wealth. [Ibid.]

If one is hired or employed by the bank to do any service that is prohibited, accepting this position is strictly prohibited (haram) and the wealth earned from this position is also strictly prohibited. [Ibid.]
 
If one is hired or employed by the bank to do a service that is itself permissible and not involved in any direct way with the prohibited services – accepting this role is permissible, although it is better not to due to the mixture of the banks’ wealth with prohibited wealth. [Ibid.]

Prohibited Roles in a Bank

Some examples of the prohibited roles that an employee may sinfully be involved in are as follows:

• Parts that directly carry out usurious or other prohibited transactions.
• Officiating a usurious contract, whether giving or taking
• Discounting usurious bills of exchange
• Documenting and/or signing off on any of the aforementioned transactions
• Receiving usurious gains, giving them, or registering them (in order to secure them) on the computer
• Being an administrator of the bank or a branch of the bank [Ibid.]

All of the above or their like are strictly prohibited to take as a job and the wealth earned from such roles is also prohibited. [Ibid.]

As part of their repentance, it is obligatory to donate the entirety of this wealth, if they have other wealth to use for their essential needs. [Ibid.]

If they only have this wealth, they can use it with the intention of borrowing from it, until they have other wealth to satisfy their needs. [Ibid.]

At this time, they will donate all the remaining wealth to charity, and they will also donate the amount that was borrowed from that original sum of prohibited wealth. [Ibid.]

Permitted Roles in a Bank

As for roles that do not directly associate with the usurious or sinful services of the bank-it is not strictly prohibited from accepting such a role, as long as one’s intention is not to assist in the prohibited. However, it is better to disassociate oneself from working at banks or insurance companies involved in prohibited services. [Ibid.]

Some examples of such roles are as follows:

• Security guard
• Driver
• Telephone operator
• Maintenance of the building, devices, or electricity
• Working solely in the permitted services offered by the bank, such as immediate exchange of currency; money transfers; drawing bank checks; securing shipment orders, or sending shipments between countries. [Ibid.]

Hope this helps
Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.