Is It Permissible to Pay a Mandatory University Activity Fee If It Can Be Used for Musical Events?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Is it permissible to pay a mandatory university activity fee if its use for permissible or impermissible activities, such as musical events, is uncertain?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

If the university activity fee is mandated and there is no way to get out of having to pay it and if you do not pay it, it will cause you undue difficulty – you are not sinful for paying such a fee.

If the above is the case, then this is akin to bribery. In such a case, you are not sinful for paying the mandated fee. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

Advice

Speak to whoever is in charge and tell them that for religious reasons, you would like to opt out of such programming, or that you would like to select activities that do not conflict with your religious adherence.

By doing this, you not only make things easy for yourself but also for future Muslim students who will undoubtedly face the same difficulty.

Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Abdul-Rahim Reasat 

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch teaches Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom Seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences.

He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he studied for three years in Dar al-Mustafa under some of the most outstanding scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib.

In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Quran and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Quranic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.