A contracting company supplying workers abroad

A question about a contracting company supplying workers abroad, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that the company's work is a hire of services owed as an obligation (ijara fi al-dhimma) and unobjectionable, but the foreign company's manager may not be given a share of the profits beyond his salary without his employer's permission. ¹

A contracting company that contracts with foreign firms to supply workers at 2,000 dinars per worker, hires the workers at 1,350 dinars and covers their visas, housing, food and transport, asked about profiting from the difference, and about a foreign company manager's request for 30% of its profit on the wage difference. ¹

The Department answered that the closest legal characterisation of the company's work is a contract of hire owed as an obligation: it hires the workers' services for a set period at an agreed wage and then re-hires those services at a higher rate, bearing their visa fees, housing, food, drink and transport. ¹ It quoted al-Kasani in Bada'i al-Sana'i (4/208) that a hired worker may do the work himself or through his own hirelings unless the contract requires him to work personally, because the contract is for the work and his hirelings' work counts as his. ¹ It said the condition set by one of the foreign company's managers, taking a percentage for bringing in the workers, is not permitted, because he is that company's employee and an employee may not take a separate percentage or commission beyond his agreed pay without its permission; it concluded that the company's arrangement itself is unobjectionable. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 4447, dated 19 April 2026. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.