Wednesday, January 19, 2011

How to deal with papers on which Allah’s name is mentioned

What is the sharia's ruling about papers that include either the prophet's name or Allah's name in newspapers, etc? How may these papers be disposed of or destroyed?


Praise be to Allah.

These papers on which Allah’s name is mentioned should be kept and protected against being handled with disrespect until you have finished with them. When you have finished with them and no longer have any need of them, they should be buried in a clean place, or burnt, or kept in a place where they will be protected against disrespect, such as in a cupboard or on shelves, etc.

Fatwa of Shaykh Ibn Baaz from Fataawa Islamiyyah, vol. 4, p. 313.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

could you please mention any ayah or authentic hadith in this regard? jzakAllahu khaira

TheGhurabah said...

BarakAllahu feek, below Insha’Allah all related evidences:

The scholars based the view as mentioned in the Article on what ‘Uthman (ra) did with the Mushafs that differed from what the Sahabah were unanimously agreed upon. Al-Bukhari narrated (Hadith no. 4987) from Anas ibn Malik that ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan (ra) ordered Zayd ibn Thabit, ‘AbdAllaah ibn al-Zubayr, Sa’eed ibn al-‘Aas and ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Harith ibn Hisham to make copies of the Mushafs. ‘Uthman said to the three Qurashi men: If you differ with Zayd ibn Thabit concerning anything of the Qur’aan, then write it in the dialect of Quraysh, for it was revealed in their tongue. They did that, then when they had copied the pages in Mushafs, ‘Uthman returned the pages to Hafsah, and he sent to each country one of the Mushafs that they had copied, and he ordered that all other copies of the Qur’aan on pages or in books be burned.

Ibn Battaal (rahimahUllah) said: “This Hadith shows that it is permissible to burn books which contain the name of Allah, and that this is a kind of respect to them and protects them from being trampled underfoot. ‘Abd al-Razzaaq narrated via Tawoos that he used to burn letters that contained the Basmalah when he had collected a good number of them, and ‘Urwah did the same, but Ibraheem regarded that as makrooh.” [Fath al-Baari (9/20)]

Al-Khateeb al-Sharbeeni al-Shaafa’i (rahimahUllah) said: “It is makrooh to burn wood into which words of Qur'aan have been carved, unless the aim is to protect the Qur’aan, in which case it is not makrooh, as may be understood from the words of Ibn ‘Abd al-Salaam. It is in this way that we may interpret ‘Uthman’s burning of the Mus-hafs.” [Mughni al-Muhtaaj (1/152)]

Shaykhul Islam Ibn Taymmiyah (rahimahUllah) said: “With regard to old Mushafs, which have worn out and are now in such a condition that they cannot be used for reading from, they should be buried in a place where they will be safe, just as the body of a believer is honoured by being buried in a place where it will be safe.” [Majmoo’ al-Fataawa (12/599)]

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