I work as an accountant and we have an employee who was laid off suddenly. He is owed approximately 33,000 and the labour laws in the country in which I am working stipulate that a one month’s salary be paid as compensation for sudden dismissal. Please note that the employee borrowed 12,000 from the company a while ago, and the owner of the company did not give him anything more than 12,000 from a total amount owed of 33,000. When I saw that blatant mistreatment, I did not include this loan in his account.

Is that haraam?

Please note also that I know full well that it is blatant mistreatment that has been done to this employee, and he has a family in another country, and his dismissal was sudden.


Praise be to Allah.

This
mistreatment that has been done to this employee does not make it
permissible to you to conceal the loan that he owes, because you have been
entrusted with this work of yours, and Allah, may He be exalted, says
(interpretation of the meaning): “Verily!
Allah commands that you should render back the trusts to those, to whom they
are due”
[an-Nisa’ 4:58].
The trust and the contract between you and the company do not allow you to
deduct the loan. Furthermore, your work as an accountant is a kind of
testimony as to whether this loan did or did not take place. Allah, may He
be exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning): “O you who believe!
Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even though it be
against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, be he rich or poor, Allah
is a Better Protector to both (than you)” [an-Nisa’ 4:135].

Ibn
Katheer (may Allah have mercy on him) said:

The
words “be he rich or poor, Allah is a Better Protector to both (than you)”
mean: do not take special care of him because he is rich or feel sorry for
him because he is poor; Allah will protect both of them and indeed He is
closer to them than you, and He knows best what is in their best interests. 

End
quote from Tafseer Ibn Katheer (Dar Tayyibah edn.), 2/433 

Do you
think that if the wrongdoer regrets this mistreatment in the future, and
restores the rights of the one who was wronged, or if the relevant
authorities get involved and restore to him his rights, what will be the
situation with regard to this loan that was not documented? 

What
if your action is discovered and they find out what you did? Undoubtedly
that will cast aspersions upon all your work. 

What
you must do is to do whatever you can to support both the wrongdoer and the
one who was wronged. In the hadeeth it tells us that the Prophet (blessings
and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “Support your brother whether he is a
wrongdoer or is wronged.” A man said: O Messenger of Allah, I will support
him if he is wronged, but what do you think if he is the wrongdoer? How can
I support him?” He said: “Stop him or prevent him from wrongdoing; that is
supporting him.”

Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6952 

So
show sincerity towards the wrongdoer in order to make him stop his
wrongdoing, and support the one who is wronged in ways that will help him to
get back his rights without betraying your trust. One of the things you can
do to help him is to explain the system to him and tell him how he can get
back his rights. 

We put
a question to Shaykh Saalih al-Fawzaan (may Allah preserve him) about the
ruling on an accountant or financial trustee of a company intervening to
take money from the owner of the company and give it to someone he thinks
has been wronged. 

The
shaykh replied: It is not permissible for the accountant to take money from
the owner of the business and give it to the one who he thinks has been
wronged; rather he should offer sincere advice to the wrongdoer and help the
one who has been wronged without touching the money with which he has been
entrusted. End quote. 

And
Allah knows best.