The Ruling on Harmful Books of Unknown Ownership
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
The questioner says: I bought a collection of books from a bookstore. When I took them home, I found a bag of books among my own that did not belong to me. When I returned to the shop the next day, the bookstore had moved to a place I did not know. What is the ruling, O Shaykh, if these books are of no benefit and may even harm whoever reads them?
Answer:
If these books harm whoever reads them, it is obligatory to destroy them; it is obligatory to destroy them, because they are forbidden books. As for if they are books of value that contain benefit and you do not know their owner, it is obligatory to give them to someone who will benefit from them, or to give them in charity to someone who will benefit from them. Your obligation is discharged by doing so, if you do not know their owner or the bookstore from which you took them. Yes.
The questioner says: I bought a collection of books from a bookstore. When I took them home, I found a bag of books among my own that did not belong to me. When I returned to the shop the next day, the bookstore had moved to a place I did not know. What is the ruling, O Shaykh, if these books are of no benefit and may even harm whoever reads them?
Answer:
If these books harm whoever reads them, it is obligatory to destroy them; it is obligatory to destroy them, because they are forbidden books. As for if they are books of value that contain benefit and you do not know their owner, it is obligatory to give them to someone who will benefit from them, or to give them in charity to someone who will benefit from them. Your obligation is discharged by doing so, if you do not know their owner or the bookstore from which you took them. Yes.
Source
نور على الدرب - الفوزان - 02/286 — archive.org (9:39)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.