Building a mosque with haraam wealth
Question Is it permissible to use money paid by fire insurance to rebuild the jaami’ mosque? Please note that it is an insurance company in the west. Praise be to Allah. Commercial insurance is haraam, because it is a kind of gambling which Allaah has forbidden in His Book. This has been explained in the…
Question
Praise be to Allah.
Commercial insurance is
haraam, because it is a kind of gambling which Allaah has forbidden in His
Book. This has been explained in the answer to question no.
8889.
Based on this, it is not
permissible to enter into commercial insurance transactions, whether the
insurance is against fire or anything else, and whether it is for the mosque
or anything else. If a person is compelled to take out insurance, then he
may do that, but he does not have the right to make use of the money paid by
the insurance, except that which is commensurate with what he paid. Anything
more than that should be spent on the public interests of the Muslims, which
includes building mosques. The scholars have stated that this is one of the
things on which haraam wealth which does not have a specific owner or whose
owner is not known may be spent.
Al-Nawawi said in
al-Majmoo’ (9/330), quoting from al-Ghazali about the disposal of
haraam wealth:
If it belongs to someone
who is unknown and there is no hope of finding the owner, then it should be
spent in the public interests of the Muslims, such as bridges, mosques and
so on which are shared by the Muslims; otherwise it may be given in charity
to one or more poor persons. End quote.
Thus it is known that there
is nothing wrong with spending the money acquired via haraam transactions on
building mosques. That includes insurance money, whether it is in a Muslim
country or elsewhere. For more information please see question no.
75410.
And Allaah knows best.
