The ruling on placing a deceased person’s books in a public library
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, a man passed away eighty years ago. He had books in his possession, some of which were printed. Time has taken its toll on them; some have torn apart and some have been lost. I have some of them, and his brother has some. After the death of their uncle, the brother took some for himself and for his children after him. They were not planted (as an endowment) nor endowed, and it was written on the books that they were to be distributed to those who would benefit from them after his death.
I have also heard from his descendants that they placed them in a library for da'wah (calling to Islam) in various cities. As for the ones I have, I do not benefit from them. So what is the ruling, may Allah reward you with good, in giving them to those who will benefit from them, or perhaps in public libraries?
Answer:
There is nothing wrong with that. Public libraries that are for reading, where students of knowledge read and benefit from them, there is no harm in placing endowment books in them. You place them in a public library, just as your uncles placed the books they had from them in the work library; you should place them there too. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, a man passed away eighty years ago. He had books in his possession, some of which were printed. Time has taken its toll on them; some have torn apart and some have been lost. I have some of them, and his brother has some. After the death of their uncle, the brother took some for himself and for his children after him. They were not planted (as an endowment) nor endowed, and it was written on the books that they were to be distributed to those who would benefit from them after his death.
I have also heard from his descendants that they placed them in a library for da'wah (calling to Islam) in various cities. As for the ones I have, I do not benefit from them. So what is the ruling, may Allah reward you with good, in giving them to those who will benefit from them, or perhaps in public libraries?
Answer:
There is nothing wrong with that. Public libraries that are for reading, where students of knowledge read and benefit from them, there is no harm in placing endowment books in them. You place them in a public library, just as your uncles placed the books they had from them in the work library; you should place them there too. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، 27 من 175 /شرح بلوغ المرام/الطهارة/قضاء الحاجة/صالح الفوزان/الحديث/كبار العلماء — youtube.com (1:12:18)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.
