Working in construction or painting of a house for a fortune-teller or practitioner of witchcraft

Question

Praise be to Allah.

If the practitioner of
witchcraft or fortune-teller is going to use this house to practise magic or
tell fortunes, it is not permissible to sell it or rent it to him, and it
is not permissible to build it or paint it for him, because it is a place
that is being established for sinful purposes, so he should not be helped in
any way, because Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“Help you one another in
Al‑Birr and At‑Taqwa (virtue, righteousness and piety); but do not help one
another in sin and transgression. And fear Allaah. Verily, Allaah is Severe
in punishment”

[al-Maa’idah 5:2]

And because there is
evidence which indicates that it is obligatory to denounce evil, and that
the one who remains silent and approves of it is to be condemned, so how
about the one who helps with it?

Ibn Qudaamah (may Allaah
have mercy on him) said: To sum up, selling fruit juice to one who is
certain to use it to make alcohol is haraam. Then he said: The same ruling
applies in all cases where the aim is something haraam, such as selling
weapons to those who are at war with the Muslims, or to bandits, or at times
of fitnah, or selling slave women to become sinners, or renting them out for
such purposes, or renting out one’s property for alcohol to sold from it, or
to be used as a church, and so on. This is haraam, and the contract is
invalid. End quote from al-Mughni (4/154).

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn
Taymiyah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: It is not valid to sell to one
who intends to use it for haraam purposes, such as selling fruit juice to
one who will use it to make alcohol, if that is known, according to the view
of Ahmad and others, or if it is thought most likely, as is one of the two
views narrated from Ahmad. This is supported by the fact that our companions
said: If the landlord thinks that the renter will rent the building for
sinful purposes, such as selling alcohol and the like, it is not permissible
for him to rent that building to him, and the rental contract is not valid.
Selling and renting are the same. End quote from al-Fataawa al-Kubra
(5/388).

It says in Mataalib Ooli
al-Nuha (3/607):

It is not valid to rent out
a house to be used as a church or synagogue or hermitage, or as a “fire
temple” for Magian (Zoroastrian) worship, or for selling alcohol or
gambling, because that is helping in sin, and Allaah says (interpretation of
the meaning): “do not help one another in sin and transgression”
[al-Maa’idah 5:2]; or to rent it out for music and singing, or anything that
the Lawgiver has forbidden. This is the correct view. If the haraam usage is
mentioned in the rental contract or is known from circumstantial evidence,
the contract is invalid. End quote.

It says in al-Mawsoo’ah
al-Fiqhiyyah (8/228):

Because the purpose behind
a rental contract is selling the usage of the house for a specified length
of time, conditions should be observed in it as in a contract of sale, which
is that there should be no shar’i impediment to making use of it, such as
haraam things like alcohol, musical instruments and pork. It is not
permissible, according to the majority of fuqaha’, to rent out a house for
purposes that are not acceptable according to sharee’ah, such as if the
renter is going to use it as a place for drinking alcohol or gambling, or he
is going to make it into a church or place of idol-worship. In that case it
is haraam to accept the rent and to pay it, because it is helping in sin.
End quote.

But if the practitioner of
witchcraft is going to use it as a place of residence and you know for
certain or based on circumstantial evidence that he is not going to use it
for practising witchcraft and falsehood, then it is permissible to build it
and paint it, although it is better to keep away from that, because the
practitioner of witchcraft should be shunned and rebuked, and the community
should oppose him until he repents from his haraam actions.

Thus the difference is
clear between the house that is acquired for sinful purposes and the house
that is acquired to live in. Even if a sinner or kaafir is going to live
there, there is no reason why one should not build a house for a kaafir or
sinner.

And Allaah knows best.