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Fatwa CenterHis employer's wife secretely violates company regulations
Question
Assalaamu alaykum. I am a corp member serving in a company. I am in charge of the general supervision of the company. My boss instructed me to keep records of everything including the sales. My boss' wife, however, will sometimes sell some goods and instruct me not to record it. Most of time, when I look at my boss, I feel guilty, but at the same time, I do not want to destroy their family, and I do not want anything that will put blemish on me or Islam. What should I do? Am I sinful if I do not tell my boss?
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
You are entrusted in this job, so you must act according to what you are entrusted to do by your boss, and you are not permitted to act otherwise except for a valid purpose.
If you are assigned to keep records, then what prevents you from doing so even without the knowledge of his wife? In any case, if you fulfil her request by not keeping records of these goods that she sells – while she is not authorized to do this – then this is betrayal (from you) of what you are entrusted to do.
Allaah says (what means): {O you who have believed, do not betray Allaah and the Messenger or betray your trusts while you know [the consequence].} [Quran 8:27]
Therefore, you must refrain from carrying out her orders; if she insists, then you should threaten her that you will inform her husband. If she is not deterred, then inform her husband in a gentle manner, and then if he approves it, there is no problem, otherwise, it seems – and Allaah knows best – that you must guarantee (what is sold without his knowledge) because you are entrusted and you transgressed and were negligent.
Al-Manthoor fi Al-Qawaa’id reads about the reasons for being a guarantor, “...and he mentioned in it: a yadd ( literally means a hand, but technically means a state of taking possession of something [asset, money, etc] not as an owner); he said: it is of two kinds: a yadd that is not entrusted, such as the yadd of a transgressor, and an entrusted yadd, such as a trust, partnership, mudhaarabah, authorization and the like. If such a yadd has transgressed, then it [such a yadd] must be a guarantor.”
Also, Durar Al-Ahkaam reads, “If the entrusted person acts contrarily to what his authorizer entrusted him to do, and this resulted in damage to his authorizer, then he must guarantee the damage.”
If her conduct led to the breaking up of her family, then you are not sinful for this because you only did what is Islamically required of you to do, and it is she who caused that to her own self and her family by her misconduct.
Allaah knows best.
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