The Ruling on the Salary from Work in Image-Making

The questioner:
I am a young Muslim who used to work in a place for image-making, knowing that image-making is forbidden, but I used to take pictures and carry the photos very rarely. At the end of the month, I was given a salary. Is this salary lawful or forbidden? It may have included some of the profit from image-making. Please advise us, may Allah reward you with good?

The Shaykh:
Yes.

The questioner:
I used to work in image-making, knowing that I was aware that image-making is forbidden, but I used to take pictures and carry the photos very rarely. At the end of the month, I was given a salary. Is this salary lawful or forbidden?

The Shaykh:
The salary for image-making is forbidden. If the image-making was for something else, but you did some of the work, then you should give in charity the portion corresponding to your work, based on the amount you spent on image-making, whether it was a quarter of the month, a fifth of the month, or a sixth of the month. The point is that the portion from image-making is forbidden. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) cursed the image-makers, saying, “The most severe punishment on the Day of Resurrection will be for those who make images.” He also said, wherever you created them, so image-making is to the level of souls, of Adam’s descendants and others, all of it is wrong. It is obligatory for the one who did it to repent to Allah from it, to fear Him, and not to return to it.

The questioner:
All right, thank you.