Fulfilling Contracts
Question: I received several employment contracts from a businessman who commissioned me to recruit workers for him. I did in fact obtain the workers’ visas, but when I travelled abroad I sold those contracts to laborers who wished to work for that businessman. Is such conduct permissible? And is the money I earned through this method lawful or forbidden?

Answer: This conduct is wrong, and the money you took for it is forbidden, because you were duty-bound to carry out what your principal entrusted to you—namely, to bring in those workers in accordance with the agreement between you and him. Selling the contracts to the workers and taking their price is an act of wrongdoing: it wrongs the workers and betrays the one who appointed you. The money you obtained in this manner is forbidden to you; you must return it to the workers from whom you took it unjustly.

Question: Even if they were content with the arrangement?

Answer: Even if they were content with it, because you were not authorized to do so, and it is nonetheless an injustice to them.

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Advice as the Discharge of One’s Duty
Question: A young man proposed to my sister. I had previously heard that he sometimes embezzles, and someone had hinted this to me, so I informed my family of what I had heard and advised them not to accept the proposal. The marriage has now gone ahead, even though it was within my power to prevent it,