Decorating Mosques and Placing Domes on Them
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
The questioner asks: What is the ruling on decorating mosques, placing domes on them, and decorating their interiors?
The Shaykh:
As for domes, there is no objection to them, because domes are an architectural style and they can provide benefits for the mosque, such as lighting, coolness, and so on. There is no objection to building domes. However, the questioner or others may have had in mind the domes over graves and assumed that all domes are not permissible. No, the intention is the domes over graves, because they become shrines. As for domes that are not over graves, there is no objection to them. As for decorating mosques, this is disliked. It is disliked to decorate mosques, engrave them, or write on them, because this distracts the worshippers, removes their humility, and draws the attention of the one entering and the worshipper to these writings, engravings, and decorations. Therefore, decorating mosques is disliked.
The questioner:
May Allah reward you and prolong your life.
The Shaykh:
And it involves imitating the Jews and Christians in their churches, as they decorate them. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you.
The questioner asks: What is the ruling on decorating mosques, placing domes on them, and decorating their interiors?
The Shaykh:
As for domes, there is no objection to them, because domes are an architectural style and they can provide benefits for the mosque, such as lighting, coolness, and so on. There is no objection to building domes. However, the questioner or others may have had in mind the domes over graves and assumed that all domes are not permissible. No, the intention is the domes over graves, because they become shrines. As for domes that are not over graves, there is no objection to them. As for decorating mosques, this is disliked. It is disliked to decorate mosques, engrave them, or write on them, because this distracts the worshippers, removes their humility, and draws the attention of the one entering and the worshipper to these writings, engravings, and decorations. Therefore, decorating mosques is disliked.
The questioner:
May Allah reward you and prolong your life.
The Shaykh:
And it involves imitating the Jews and Christians in their churches, as they decorate them. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you.
Source
شرح كتاب التوحيد [ صالح الفوزان ]، باب من الشرك أن يستغيث بغير الله أو يدعو غيره — islamhouse.com (53:24)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.