muthmainnah
Junior Member
TV - Yes or No?
By Dr. Saleh as-Saleh
Taken from: Q & A on Pal Talk in the Understand Islam room under Social Issues,
7th Rajab 1427
Transcribed by Aboo Uthmaan
www.understand-islam.net
By Dr. Saleh as-Saleh
Taken from: Q & A on Pal Talk in the Understand Islam room under Social Issues,
7th Rajab 1427
Transcribed by Aboo Uthmaan
www.understand-islam.net
In general almost every house has a television, especially in western countries, if not in all (countries). Unlawful things (are shown on the television), like music (with different musical instruments), so therefore,
television contains and shows:
Unlawful music
Violent and criminal series and shows
Superstitious and imaginative unrealistic things
Free mixing of sexes
Nakedness and tight clothes
Gays and lesbians
Distorted information about Islam and Muslims
In many “so called” soap operas you witness cheating, a man cheats on his wife and
she cheats on him with unlawful relations,
Drinking of haraam
Women singing half naked without anything covering their breasts
The extent of the above varies from one program to another, but in many cases all of the above exists.
There is no doubt that anyone who uses the television for any of the above reasons then it is forbidden for him to keep it (the television) and forbidden for him to see.
Anyone who brings the television (into the home), while knowing, or thinks that it is most likely that he cannot avoid the programs that are mentioned then he is insisting on haraam.
Anyone who brings the television (into the home) to his family and his children and leaves them to use it openly despite all of these programmes, even though he may not see them himself, then in this case he is committing haraam and accumulating sins because he is helping in haraam and will be held accountable on the Day of Resurrection.
Watching television without owning it is divided into three categories:
1) Watching that which is of benefit for one's religion and beneficial matters of this life, however it is conditional on it not becoming a means to see the
haraam, for example, the woman sits looking at and enjoying seeing the man
giving the news, because this would be fitnah. The same applies to the man,
looking at a beautiful woman giving the news with enjoyment, this is a fitnah.
2) Seeing that which is harmful to one's religion is haraam because the believer is obligated to protect himself and his family in the religion.
3) That which is of no benefit or no harm is nonsense which does not befit the believer and the believer should not waste his time with it.
This is what has been discussed by our Shaykh, Muhammad ibn Saalih al-
‘Uthaymeen, rahimahullaah.
The Permanent Committee of Scholars have stated (in a fatwa) that the television is an instrument that in and of itself has no ruling regarding it; rather, the ruling applies to its use, if it is used for haraam, like singing, showing haraam pictures, foolishness, lying, cheating, deviant creeds (beliefs), altering realities, inciting fitan, then it is haraam, if it is used in that which is good, like recitation of the Qur’aan, making the truth clear, enjoining the good and forbidding the evil, then it becomes useful and permissible from this angle. In the case that the two matters become equal or the level of evil exceeds the level of good then the television becomes haraam.
