What is the ruling on acquiring satellite dishes that receive external broadcasts?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Let the questioner raise his voice; we cannot hear him.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : I say: O Shaykh, there is a device.
The Shaykh : He says: Raise your voice.
The questioner : There is a device called a dish, O Shaykh.
The Shaykh : Yes, there is a device called a dish that showers water on a person during the ritual bath.
The questioner : This one showers programs on the television, is it not?
The Shaykh : Yes, it sprays like that.
The questioner : Yes, O Shaykh.
The Shaykh : Yes, explain this dish to me. If it is a new dish that I do not know about, explain it.
The questioner : It is like a satellite, but smaller, and it brings in external broadcasts. What is the ruling on acquiring it, O Shaykh?
The Shaykh : What is the ruling on what?
The questioner : Acquiring it for homes?
The Shaykh : Yes.
Acquiring the dish, or what they call the aerial or antenna, as the common people also say, it is all the same. The question is: what is sought from this dish, or this aerial, or this antenna? A person may have, for example, knowledge, seeking knowledge in technological sciences or other information that is broadcast on external channels but not broadcast here, and he wants to learn. In that case, there is nothing wrong with it. But the general rule is that this dish, the aerial, and the television are mostly sources of sin, and the good in them, if there is any good, is perhaps ten percent. Therefore, we advise every person not to have them in his home, neither a television, nor a dish, nor an aerial, nor anything else. He should avoid this, for safety is safer. Safety is safer.
The questioner : The news, O Shaykh?
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : The news.
The Shaykh : The news is fine; there is nothing wrong with it. We see nothing wrong with it. We see nothing wrong with it. But, but safety from it is safer.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : If the news is accompanied by music, it is of the same kind as intoxicants, having both benefits and sins, and thus it becomes forbidden. Because if the forbidden is mixed with the permissible in a way that they cannot be distinguished, avoidance is obligatory, as is the rule among jurists: if a prohibitive factor and a permissive factor are present and they cannot be separated, the side of prohibition prevails.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : I say: O Shaykh, there is a device.
The Shaykh : He says: Raise your voice.
The questioner : There is a device called a dish, O Shaykh.
The Shaykh : Yes, there is a device called a dish that showers water on a person during the ritual bath.
The questioner : This one showers programs on the television, is it not?
The Shaykh : Yes, it sprays like that.
The questioner : Yes, O Shaykh.
The Shaykh : Yes, explain this dish to me. If it is a new dish that I do not know about, explain it.
The questioner : It is like a satellite, but smaller, and it brings in external broadcasts. What is the ruling on acquiring it, O Shaykh?
The Shaykh : What is the ruling on what?
The questioner : Acquiring it for homes?
The Shaykh : Yes.
Acquiring the dish, or what they call the aerial or antenna, as the common people also say, it is all the same. The question is: what is sought from this dish, or this aerial, or this antenna? A person may have, for example, knowledge, seeking knowledge in technological sciences or other information that is broadcast on external channels but not broadcast here, and he wants to learn. In that case, there is nothing wrong with it. But the general rule is that this dish, the aerial, and the television are mostly sources of sin, and the good in them, if there is any good, is perhaps ten percent. Therefore, we advise every person not to have them in his home, neither a television, nor a dish, nor an aerial, nor anything else. He should avoid this, for safety is safer. Safety is safer.
The questioner : The news, O Shaykh?
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : The news.
The Shaykh : The news is fine; there is nothing wrong with it. We see nothing wrong with it. We see nothing wrong with it. But, but safety from it is safer.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : If the news is accompanied by music, it is of the same kind as intoxicants, having both benefits and sins, and thus it becomes forbidden. Because if the forbidden is mixed with the permissible in a way that they cannot be distinguished, avoidance is obligatory, as is the rule among jurists: if a prohibitive factor and a permissive factor are present and they cannot be separated, the side of prohibition prevails.