Is It Permissible to Provide Copywriting Services to Businesses That Use Impermissible Elements?
Hanafi Fiqh
Answered by Mawlana Ilyas Patel
Question
Is it permissible to provide copywriting services to businesses that use impermissible elements like haram pictures or music?
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate
I pray you are in good faith and health. Thank you for your question.
Copywriting in and of itself is a permissible job as long as writing any type of content is of permissible nature and free from any innuendos, illicit nature, vulgar, enticing to the impermissible, violence, etc. If this is the case, then your income is permissible and halal.
The reason is that your income is in return for writing descriptions of certain nature, items, and products. So long as the content of the writing is of a permissible nature, it would be permissible; otherwise, not. The descriptions are then placed by another company with impossible pictures or of immodest nature is their act. However, one should only try to find clients for whom one only has to write decent, permissible content.
Assisting in Sin
If the content of your writing involves writing of an impermissible nature, then it will come under assisting in sin. Allah Most High says, “And aid one another in devotion to your Lord in every good and godfearing ness, and do not aid one another in sin and transgression; And fear Allah: Verily Allah is unsparing in reprisal.” [Quran, 5:2]
In the Hanafi school, the degrees of assisting another in sin are:
- Direct assistance in sin.
- Indirect assistance in sin.
- Possible cause for sin.
[Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar; Nahlawi, Durar al-Mubaha; Usmani, Fiqh al-Buyu‘]
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I pray this helps answer your question.
[Mawlana] Ilyas Patel
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Mawlana Ilyas Patel is a traditionally-trained scholar who has studied in the UK, India, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey. He started his early education in the UK. He went on to complete the hifz of the Quran in India, then enrolled in an Islamic seminary in the UK, where he studied the secular and ‘Aalimiyya sciences. He then traveled to Karachi, Pakistan. He has been an Imam in Rep of Ireland for several years. He has taught hifz of the Quran, Tajwid, Fiqh, and many other Islamic sciences to children and adults onsite and online extensively in the UK and Ireland. He taught at a local Islamic seminary for 12 years in the UK, where he was a librarian and a teacher of Islamic sciences. He currently resides in the UK with his wife. His interest is a love of books and gardening.
