Refusing to accept a gift by likening it to the prohibition of one’s mother
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The Shaykh:
She does not know that he observed her while she was sleeping, or that he slept with her; she knows nothing about that, and she owes nothing.
The questioner:
The questioner says: A friend of mine gave me one thousand riyals. He is of moderate means, so I refused to take it from him and told him, “It is forbidden to me, like my mother is forbidden; I will not take it.” I refused to accept it on that basis. Please answer from your eminence. Do I have any sin on me for my words when I said it was forbidden like my mother, or not?
The Shaykh:
Since you did not take it, you owe nothing. But if you had taken it, because you value your honesty and dislike returning it, if you had taken it and accepted it, there is no harm. Accepting a gift from a brother or a lover is good. But since you returned it, or kept it, or returned it to him,
She does not know that he observed her while she was sleeping, or that he slept with her; she knows nothing about that, and she owes nothing.
The questioner:
The questioner says: A friend of mine gave me one thousand riyals. He is of moderate means, so I refused to take it from him and told him, “It is forbidden to me, like my mother is forbidden; I will not take it.” I refused to accept it on that basis. Please answer from your eminence. Do I have any sin on me for my words when I said it was forbidden like my mother, or not?
The Shaykh:
Since you did not take it, you owe nothing. But if you had taken it, because you value your honesty and dislike returning it, if you had taken it and accepted it, there is no harm. Accepting a gift from a brother or a lover is good. But since you returned it, or kept it, or returned it to him,
Source
فتاوى الحج - ٣ — archive.org (28:33)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.