The Ruling on Reciting the Qur'an at Funerals and Hiring Reciters

Question:
May Allah reward you with good and do you good. After this, a listener residing in Riyadh, named Hamid 'Abd al-Nafi', asks and says: Is it permissible to recite the Noble Qur'an at gatherings and funerals for money, knowing that this continues for a week in some areas? Please guide us. May Allah reward you with good.

Answer:
Holding these funerals is a bid'ah (religious innovation), a sin, and a harm to the living and the dead. It is a bad custom from the customs of the jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic age of ignorance). Reciting the Qur'an in them is a bid'ah and haram (forbidden), because the Qur'an is protected from such innovative gatherings. If the reciter takes a wage for that, then this wage is haram (forbidden) because it is in exchange for a forbidden act and participation in the bid'ah. Also, because he has degraded the Qur'an and made it a trade by which he earns a living in these innovative gatherings. Taking the Qur'an for earning a living is not permissible, because reciting the Qur'an is worship that must be made sincere for Allah the Exalted, and one should not seek worldly gain through it. Yes.