In recent months, Muslim employees at some of the world’s most powerful tech companies have found themselves at a crossroads—grappling with whether their work may be contributing to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.
For many, the issue is not just political, but deeply spiritual: can they reconcile their faith with roles at companies that contract with the Israeli military?
Ibtihal Aboussad, a former Microsoft employee, was fired after protesting the company’s involvement with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Before her dismissal, she sent two internal emails: one to all Microsoft employees urging them to oppose military contracts, and another to the “Muslims at Microsoft” employee group. The subject line read: “Muslims of Microsoft, Our Code Kills Palestinians.”
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“I wanted to say, ‘Hey, remember, your rizq [livelihood] is from Allah,’” Aboussad told The Guardian. “It should be clean, and you cannot be contributing to oppression.”
Since the war in Gaza escalated, tech workers at Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have protested their companies’ military ties, particularly their contracts with the Israeli government.
Some have resigned or been terminated, while others remain torn—struggling to balance their spiritual and ethical convictions with career responsibilities and financial needs.
“Honestly, I’ve been praying about what Allah wants me to do,” said one Microsoft employee. “But if we leave, then there could be a pro-Israeli person who takes our spot.”
One Google employee said they had decided staying was no longer religiously permissible. However, their father disagreed, arguing it was their “Islamic duty” to remain and try to make a difference from within.
“I’m just trying to go back to neutral,” the employee said. “Every day my work is actively harming people.”
Solidarity
The protest led by Aboussad and her co-worker Vaniya Agrawal inspired solidarity across regions. In Cairo, around 100 Microsoft employees reportedly took a day off in silent protest.
One woman who resigned that day said, “I don’t think I belong here, and me staying here is just supporting what they’re doing.”
Microsoft stated that an internal investigation found “no evidence” that its Azure or AI products were used to cause harm.
However, leaked documents and investigative reports have cast doubt on those assurances. Concerns have also grown over Project Nimbus, a multi-billion-dollar cloud contract involving Google, Amazon, and the Israeli government.
Some Muslim employees have turned to scholars and imams for spiritual guidance. Imam Omar Suleiman of the Yaqeen Institute is working to develop a religious framework to help Muslims assess the permissibility of working in roles connected to state violence or oppression.
“There’s room for the person who holds back the hand of the pharaoh from inside the pharaoh’s court,” Suleiman said. “But they have to demonstrate how exactly they’re minimizing that harm.”
Hasan Ibraheem, a former Google worker who was fired for protesting, expressed the dilemma clearly in an essay now circulating among Muslim tech professionals: “If you do not organise, you must leave. And even if you organize, your goal should be to eventually leave. Organizing does not absolve you of complicity indefinitely.”