The ruling on submitting personal photos to schools and government offices
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The school, as well as government offices, asks us for personal photos every so often. Is it permissible to take photos for that purpose?
The Shaykh:
If they forced you to do this, and the matter is between leaving your studies or not taking photos, you should commit the lesser of the two harms, which is taking the photos, because leaving your studies is a greater harm than taking photos. It is permissible to commit the lesser of two harms to avert the greater of them.
The questioner:
Taking the photos.
The Shaykh:
For the sake of your studies. It is a matter of necessity. Because if you left your studies, the harm would be greater, and the sin would be upon the one who forced you to do this.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The school, as well as government offices, asks us for personal photos every so often. Is it permissible to take photos for that purpose?
The Shaykh:
If they forced you to do this, and the matter is between leaving your studies or not taking photos, you should commit the lesser of the two harms, which is taking the photos, because leaving your studies is a greater harm than taking photos. It is permissible to commit the lesser of two harms to avert the greater of them.
The questioner:
Taking the photos.
The Shaykh:
For the sake of your studies. It is a matter of necessity. Because if you left your studies, the harm would be greater, and the sin would be upon the one who forced you to do this.
Source
شرح عمدة الأحكام، كتاب القصاص - كتاب الحدود — islamhouse.com (1:17:56)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.