Purchasing religious books that are endowments and are sold in Europe
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
The questioner says: There are brothers in Europe who travel to the Kingdom from time to time. They collect religious books from donors and people of good in various parts of the Kingdom for the purpose of charitable distribution. However, when they bring these books to Europe, they sell them to individuals and bookstores. They claim that there is a fatwa permitting this action. The question is: Is it permissible for us, or for the bookstores, to purchase these books from them?
Answer:
No, these books were donated by their owners and have become an endowment (waqf). It is not permissible to sell an endowment. If a fatwa was issued permitting this, it is incorrect. It is not permissible to sell an endowment. These are books endowed for the needy and students of knowledge, so it is not permissible to sell them. Yes.
The questioner says: There are brothers in Europe who travel to the Kingdom from time to time. They collect religious books from donors and people of good in various parts of the Kingdom for the purpose of charitable distribution. However, when they bring these books to Europe, they sell them to individuals and bookstores. They claim that there is a fatwa permitting this action. The question is: Is it permissible for us, or for the bookstores, to purchase these books from them?
Answer:
No, these books were donated by their owners and have become an endowment (waqf). It is not permissible to sell an endowment. If a fatwa was issued permitting this, it is incorrect. It is not permissible to sell an endowment. These are books endowed for the needy and students of knowledge, so it is not permissible to sell them. Yes.
Source
الفوزان -أشرطة- شرح زاد المستقنع مع الأسئلة - 075-كتاب النكاح - 7-11-24 هـ — archive.org (1:16:28)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.