What Is the Ruling of Reading Literature with Inappropriate Content?

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Question

What literature would be considered “lewd” or “promoting the impermissible,” and therefore to be avoided?

Answer

In the name of Allah, Most Merciful.

Literary works whose general contents are permissible are permissible, even if they contain some incidental or secondary reprehensible content.

However, works whose primary contents are impermissible are generally impermissible to read–and those that have extensive impermissible content should be avoided unless there are genuine secondary considerations.

And Allah knows best.

Wassalam,
[Shaykh] Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Faraz Rabbani spent ten years studying with some of the leading scholars of recent times, first in Damascus, and then in Amman, Jordan. His teachers include the foremost theologian of recent times in Damascus, the late Shaykh Adib al-Kallas (may Allah have mercy on him), as well as his student Shaykh Hassan al-Hindi, one of the leading Hanafi fuqaha of the present age. He returned to Canada in 2007, where he founded SeekersGuidance in order to meet the urgent need to spread Islamic knowledge–both online and on the ground–in a reliable, relevant, inspiring, and accessible manner. He is the author of: Absolute Essentials of Islam: Faith, Prayer, and the Path of Salvation According to the Hanafi School (White Thread Press, 2004.) Since 2011, Shaykh Faraz has been named one of the 500 most influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center.