The ruling on shortening one’s work hours to perform another obligation
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
Ibrahim from al-Hawtah, please, my brother Ibrahim. Peace be upon you. And upon you be peace.
The Shaykh:
Peace.
The questioner:
I have a question for the honorable Shaykh Salih, please. My question is: What is the ruling, for example, on someone who plans to take part of the official working hours to perform a duty of condolence, for example, for one of the people or relatives, or to attend to a specific need? Is this action permissible, or is the employee a trustee of his work for the state during the specified times? That is my question. Thank you.
The Shaykh:
Without a doubt, the employee is required to be present at the workplace and to perform the work, and it is not permissible for him to be absent and leave the work except for a valid religious excuse permitted by the system. As for being lax and lazy, not being keen to attend, or not being keen to complete the working hours, this is not permissible; because this is a trust in his charge.[An-Nisa 4:58] That is, entrust the affairs to those who are capable of carrying them out in the prescribed manner, and the positions, yes.
Ibrahim from al-Hawtah, please, my brother Ibrahim. Peace be upon you. And upon you be peace.
The Shaykh:
Peace.
The questioner:
I have a question for the honorable Shaykh Salih, please. My question is: What is the ruling, for example, on someone who plans to take part of the official working hours to perform a duty of condolence, for example, for one of the people or relatives, or to attend to a specific need? Is this action permissible, or is the employee a trustee of his work for the state during the specified times? That is my question. Thank you.
The Shaykh:
Without a doubt, the employee is required to be present at the workplace and to perform the work, and it is not permissible for him to be absent and leave the work except for a valid religious excuse permitted by the system. As for being lax and lazy, not being keen to attend, or not being keen to complete the working hours, this is not permissible; because this is a trust in his charge.
Indeed, Allah commands you to render trusts to whom they are due
إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُكُمْ أَن تُؤَدُّوا الْأَمَانَاتِ إِلَىٰ أَهْلِهَا
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، 2465 - حكم التقصير في الوظيفة لأداء واجب آخر - الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.