Question Summary:
Is it permissible to work as an accountant and deal with interest?

Question Detail:

I am studying accounting in college and it is a joint program to university. For school while preparing balance sheets we have to deal with interest, but it is not for a real company. It is just for the purpose of learning (if that is also wrong please let me know). My worry is when I am done with University to further advance my studies, I want to become a Chartered Accountant and to become one you have to work in a certain company assigned by the Canadian government and handle business' books. While working and getting that experience to become a CA, I will have to deal with interest in the sense that it will be on the Balance sheets or the Accounts Receivable portion and I will be determining values with the interest amount as well....Is it haram? I am switching colleges this month and I want to know if I should switch my major because I do not plan on being a tax accountant which does not deal with interest. I would like to be a CA. JazakAllah May Allah Reward you and grant you and all of us Jannat-ul-Firdous, Ameen!

Answer :

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In the Name of Allāh, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
As-salāmu ‘alaykum wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh.

As a chartered accountant if you will be recording, correcting or checking the books where the interest has already been charged, then that is permissible, yet best to avoid. This is assuming that the company you're working for derives the major portion of its income from halal avenues.
If the majority of the company's revenue is haram or you will be assisting in initiating, valuing, or proposing interest charges to be charged by the company then that is impermissible.[i]
The difference between the above two scenarios is that in the first case, you are merely recording an event that has already occurred and in the second you are actively assisting in the sin.
Since you have been blessed with the realization of the great severity of dealing with interest, it would be best for you to change your major to one where you won't have to deal with interest.

And Allāh knows best.
Ml. Sohail Bengali
Chicago, IL (USA)
Concurred by:
Muftī Abrar Mirza
Chicago, IL (USA)
Under the Supervision of Muftī Ebrahim Desai (South Africa)
 
[i] Contemporary Fatawaa, pg. 161-162, Idara-e-Islamiat