I seek advice from your excellence, for there is no television in my home, praise and thanks be to Allah.
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The questioner : His EminenceThe Shaykh : I seek advice from your excellence, for there is no television in my home, praise and thanks be to Allah. However, my sons have now grown up and sometimes ask for it, and I hate it intensely. Now, when I go to my relatives or my wife’s relatives, they turn to the television as if they were camels that had not seen water for months. O honorableThe Shaykh : I have heard that there are game computers, and there are Islamic video tapes, and cartoon films depicting the heroics and battles of the Salaf. But do not cartoon films fall under the prohibition of images because they are drawings by hand? So what do you advise me to do, O honorable Shaykh, given the situation I have described? May Allah reward you and forgive us, you, and all those present?
Note: If I do not bring tapes and video into my home, am I considered extreme, because this is what we hear from some people of weak faith?
The Shaykh : What I see is that the one whom Allah has protected from television is in good, if Allah wills. And what the questioner mentioned, the computer, suffices for it, because you control this computer; you bring in the video tapes you want of anything, whether they are about Allah’s (Mighty and Majestic) creation, or about the heroics of people, or the like. But in reality, I dislike the heroics, because if a child starts watching these heroics of a specific person, it will ignite in his mind that there is no hero in Islam except this person. And this is a problem. For example, Muhammad al-Fatih’s tape became famous. He is undoubtedly a hero and much good came about through him, but can he be compared to the heroics of the Companions? Absolutely not. If a boy grows up and his mind is filled with the idea that the hero of Islam is this man, he will forget the other heroes. Therefore, if you converted these tapes to dealing with realistic matters so that there would be upbringing in that, that would be better. As for the issue of images, these images are not visible images, they are not visible images, because if a person saw the tape with the naked eye, he would not see anything until it is displayed on the device that outputs the images from this tape. So they do not fall under the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family):Sunan Abi Dawud 4155Sahih (Al-Albani). Yes.
Note: If I do not bring tapes and video into my home, am I considered extreme, because this is what we hear from some people of weak faith?
The Shaykh : What I see is that the one whom Allah has protected from television is in good, if Allah wills. And what the questioner mentioned, the computer, suffices for it, because you control this computer; you bring in the video tapes you want of anything, whether they are about Allah’s (Mighty and Majestic) creation, or about the heroics of people, or the like. But in reality, I dislike the heroics, because if a child starts watching these heroics of a specific person, it will ignite in his mind that there is no hero in Islam except this person. And this is a problem. For example, Muhammad al-Fatih’s tape became famous. He is undoubtedly a hero and much good came about through him, but can he be compared to the heroics of the Companions? Absolutely not. If a boy grows up and his mind is filled with the idea that the hero of Islam is this man, he will forget the other heroes. Therefore, if you converted these tapes to dealing with realistic matters so that there would be upbringing in that, that would be better. As for the issue of images, these images are not visible images, they are not visible images, because if a person saw the tape with the naked eye, he would not see anything until it is displayed on the device that outputs the images from this tape. So they do not fall under the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family):