How can an accountant in Egypt identify companies free from usurious transactions, and is there a list or guide available for that?
What is religiously forbidden is to directly engage in usurious transactions or to assist in them. However, for an accountant or anyone else to work in companies or institutions that operate in permissible activities, but also deal with usury, their work in such an entity is permissible, provided they keep away from the usurious transactions. Sheikh Ibn Uthaymeen was asked about the ruling on working in a company that deals with banks through usury and pays its employees' salaries from usurious loans. He replied: "Therefore, you are neither writing down usury, nor witnessing it, nor taking it, nor giving it. So I see no problem in this, as long as your work is sound in what is between you and the company, then the company bears its own sin. If you do not go to the banks and do not sign bank transactions, then there is nothing upon you. This institution – firstly – was not built for usury, and it is not like a bank where we would say: do not work there. So it was not founded for usury. Secondly: you did not directly engage in usury, neither by writing, nor by witnessing, nor by serving. Your work is separate from usury."
Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026
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