Is working in big tech halal? Muslim workers are reckoning with the possibility that their jobs go against their religious obligations
Before Ibtihal Aboussad was fired by Microsoft for protesting the company’s work with the Israeli military during a celebration of the firm’s 50th anniversary, she sent two emails.
The first went to all of her colleagues. She appealed to their universal humanity and urged them to stand against Microsoft’s contracts to provide cloud computing software and artificial intelligence products to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
She sent the second to the “Muslims at Microsoft” email list. Its subject line read: “Muslims of Microsoft, Our Code Kills Palestinians.”
With her email, Aboussad told the Guardian, she wanted Muslim staff of companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon to stop regarding the question of whether they organize against their employer’s work with the IDF as an issue of secular or professional ethics. It was a question of Islam, of their faith, she argued.
