Preparing Pizza That Contains Pork
Fatwa No: 410182

Question

Salam aleykum wa rahmatullah. May Allah bless and reward you for your efforts. My question is to do with my work. I wear gloves and prepare pizzas in a place that serves pizza to customers but amongst it’s most favourite and popular pizzas are pizzas that have pork on them, i want to know if working in this place is haram and if my income will be haram because if i leave this job, there is no other job for me in the town that i live in and speaking from past experience. i will end up staying at home and wasting a lot of time playing video games, watching pornography, masturbation and falling to other bigger sins. Furthermore, i want to save up to go to hajj next year inshallah and i also have university coming but if i leave this job, i won’t have any money to be able to afford any of those things, so do the means justify the end or is working for me in this place haram no matter what even if not working there could lead me to bigger sins like time wasting, staying at home and falling to sins like masturbation and watching pornography because of boredom and etc.... furthermore, if i decide to work in this place, is it permissible for me to join two prayers like zuhr and asr or maghrib and isha if i feel like i will miss them during work? There is no place to pray in my work area so am i elegible for joining my prayers if i fear they might be missed? May Allah bless you and i’m really looking forward to your response.

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

If you are directly involved in preparing pizza that contains pork, it is not permissible for you to do so, or to keep this job. But if you can keep your job without directly participating in preparing food that contains pork, then you are not sinful for keeping it. If it is proven to be prohibited for you to keep this job (i.e. if you directly partake in making such food), what you mentioned that you would fall in graver sins were you to quit the job does not justify keeping it. This is because it is incumbent on you to leave such an unlawful job, give up sins, and repent to Allah, The Almighty, of them. You should look for a permissible job and preoccupy yourself with what benefits you, such as seeking useful knowledge and performing good deeds. However, if it is permissible for you to retain your job (if you do not directly partake in making such food), yet you cannot perform the prayers, each on its due time because doing this incurs an evident difficulty upon you, then you are granted a concession, Allah willing, to combine the Thuhr and ‘Asr prayers during the time of either of them, and the Maghrib and ‘Ishaa' prayers during the time of either of them.

For more benefit on selling or delivering pizza which contains pork, please refer to Fataawa 85993, 82565 and 106975.

Allah Knows best.

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