What is the ruling on using vessels coated with gold and silver?

The questioner : Professor, what is the ruling now on those who sell lighting fixtures covered in gold, and faucets are the same; what is the ruling on using them?

The Shaykh : This is a question we have been asked repeatedly, the most recent being just yesterday.
There is no doubt that vessels closer to the example of this type of fixture, which you describe as making a person suspect that it is made of gold or silver, are more problematic than the fixtures themselves; because the fixtures are large, so it does not occur to the viewer that the fixture is gold, but what occurs to the mind is that it is covered, meaning plated. So I spoke recently about spoons and plates that are coated with gold, what is their ruling? I answered as follows: The Messenger (peace be upon him) forbade eating from vessels of gold and silver. These vessels, which are not originally gold or silver but are coated with gold or silver, are not linguistically called gold or silver vessels. Therefore, the warning and prohibition that came in the hadiths do not apply to this type of vessel; because they are not gold or silver vessels. However, from the perspective of wisdom that some people think is a Prophetic hadith but has no basis, but it is a wisdom: "Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him not stand in places of suspicion." So when you—may Allah forbid it—want to use vessels coated with gold, you have to engage in a long and broad argument so that whenever you eat or host people in such vessels, they say to you: This is forbidden, this is not permissible, and so on. You have to tell them: By Allah, this is not gold, it is coated; do you see how it is? No, just as they say in our region in Syria: "Whoever does not want to see bad dreams should not sleep between graves." What is the point of getting into these problems? So we say that eating from these vessels coated with gold or silver is not forbidden, but we say: it is disliked from the perspective of removing suspicion from yourself; is that clear?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Now we come to the fixtures; it does not occur to a person that they are gold unless he is in one of the houses of kings, meaning that the suspicion here is much weaker than that. So these matters must be considered such that if there is a reason to remove suspicion, one should avoid using vessels coated with gold and silver as well; because the Messenger (peace be upon him) equated the silver vessel with gold regarding the prohibition of eating and drinking from them, while he did not equate silver with gold in the prohibition of their absolute use. He said (peace be upon him): or .
This explicitly states the prohibition of eating even from silver vessels; knowing that silver is not forbidden like gold. Gold is forbidden for men generally, except what is necessitated by dire necessity, and permissible for women generally, except what is excluded, such as gold vessels. The prohibition is shared by women and men. This provides us with room to convince those who want to be convinced of what is established from the Messenger (peace be upon him) regarding the prohibition of gold and silver bracelets for women as well; because the majority of people always argue on this occasion that the Messenger said, and he came out to the Companions with gold in one hand and silk in the other, and said: . They say: This hadith is explicit in the absolute permissibility of gold for women. We say: No; because when a general text is qualified or specified by something, it must be qualified or specified by the specifier. For example, He (the Exalted) said: . The dead animal here is absolute. Do you think the dead fish is forbidden? Is the dead locust forbidden? The answer: No. Why? Because hadiths came explaining the permissibility of this type of dead animal. So combining the noble verse with the hadiths that permitted dead locusts and fish, it is said in understanding the verse: except the dead locust and the fish, and blood except the blood of the liver and spleen. The specific is excluded from the general. This is how it is established in the science of principles.
When the hadith came: , it is a general text. But other hadiths came forbidding women what some jurists briefly call "gold jewelry," which is three types: the ring, the bracelet, and the necklace. When they argue with this hadith, they forget that it is forbidden by consensus for women to eat from gold vessels; even though he permitted gold for women. So this is an exception to the permissibility. And the exception of gold jewelry is more appropriate than the exception of gold vessels; because there is no specific evidence in the prohibition of gold vessels for women; because he said: , which is a general formulation. So it was possible to specify this general text with the first general text: . But the scholars agreed on this. So at that time, we take from the sum of the hadiths that gold is forbidden for men and lawful for women. But just as some types of gold were excluded and forbidden for women, so some gold was excluded and permitted for men. For example, in "Musnad Imam Ahmad," a man from the Companions named "Urfajah ibn Sa'd" had his nose injured in a battle in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance called "the Battle of Kulab." When he embraced Islam, he made a nose from silver; meaning from silver...