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Fatwa CenterEarnings of a worker whose skills are gained from copied material
Question
Asalam alykum, I have 3 guestions. 1) I am recent engineer graduate and looking for work in England. In order to boost my chances I wanted to improve my skills and knowledge. To do this my plans are getting engineering softwares from friends (they are good at computers)and playing around with them and downloading books unavailable to me. My intentions are to expand my abilties and use them to gain empolyment. Islamically if i do this, is it haram? Also given i do freelance work or offered a job demanding these skills and knowlege which i gained from these softwares & books, will the money i earn be haram as well? 2) I have been offered an interview for a job in testing medical equipment. The company is a branch of Johnson & Johnson. They are a well known company supporting israel. A brother has told me it wont be permisable to work for them. Is this true and will the money i earn from this job be haram. 3) tax is unavoidable in england, therefore if we do pay our taxes in england. are we commiting sin? May Allah reward you all for your help and advise. I hope to hear from you very soon inshallah.
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.
Your question included three matters.
1- Firstly, as for your question about the ruling of using programmes whose owners do not permit copying or downloading it without their permission, we have clarified that this is not permissible even though some scholars permitted this if it is for personal use without selling it or trading in it. For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 82812 and 90886.
In any case, if you benefit from some skills gained from any of those programmes and work according to those skills, then this is not forbidden for you and it does not affect your earnings from your work if it is lawful in itself and you did it as it should be done.
2- Secondly, as regards your question about working for a company that supports Israel, then the answer is that it is permissible to work with that company in what is lawful in principle as the Prophet used to deal with the Jews and some Companions worked for them. The fact that that company may help that country that is an enemy of Islam does not make it forbidden to work or deal with it unless the Muslims are of the view that one should boycott the companies that support the enemy; in that case it would be forbidden to work with such companies for this reason.
3- Thirdly, with regard to your question about the ruling of paying tax when being forced to do so, we clarified the ruling in Fataawa 89947 and 82392, so please refer to it.
Allaah Knows best.
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