Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #198 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 19 Jan 2021 › Segment 13 of 41
If money was earned in a haram way, is it haram for whoever receives it?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith sadaqa sadqa sadaqat sadqah voluntary charity muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam halaal permitted lawful haraam dalil daleel adillah adilla proof jahannam jahanam jahannum sahabah sahaba sahabi sahabiyyah sahabiyatIs haram money intrinsically bad? Stolen money and the meat given as sadaqah
Watch the answer
Open on YouTube at 40:27The player starts at 40:27, where the answer begins.
This segment40:27 to 47:58 · 7 min 31 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenMoney is not haram in itself, Mufti Abu Layth says: the sin lies with whoever earned it unlawfully, not with someone who later receives it unknowingly.
In more detail
Asked to explain the concept of haram money, Mufti Abu Layth says money in itself has no intrinsic moral value; it is how it is earned that makes it halal or haram. If stolen money is paid to someone who does not know, such as a shopkeeper, the shopkeeper has not taken haram money, while the thief bears the sin. As evidence he cites a hadith in which the Prophet eats meat that had been given as sadaqah, which was forbidden to him and his family, and replies that it was sadaqah to them and a gift to us, so the ruling does not cross over with the property. He adds that the Prophet forbidding sadaqah to himself and his family testifies to his character, since he could otherwise have become the main channel for charity, and tells shopkeepers who suspect customers of crime that they need not feel guilty.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedPlease explain the concept of haram money.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says money in and of itself carries no intrinsic moral value; it is how it is earned that makes it haram or halal.
“it is how you earn that money that is then that gives it a particular moral value”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine40:27 to 47:58 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
like this one so but you know like somebody could say a peck on the cheek or just a simple he does that break woodo and no that wouldn't that kind of stuff wouldn't so this is why I said meaningful you know if it's meaningful then then then a person renews their woodoo but other than that you don't break your Wu by eating anything or doing stuff like that okay cool what else was there as a super chair let's take a look people shr much love uh wake for a moment I thought what what
kind of her name is wer wer super chatted much love for the Super Chat shukran shukran alist black brother says uh please explain the concept of Haram money actually yes uh alista that's an uh interesting question money in and of itself is never you know Haram Halal per se it is money which has
no um internal or intrinsic kind of moral value Associated to it um it is how you earn that money that is then that gives it a particular moral value so you steal something it is then Haram okay you earn it it is halal that that's how the moral values are applied to money money in and of itself is not a it doesn't carry intrin intrinsic moral um you know kind of units or
anything with it values value codes with it so you couldn't so if somebody had stolen money let's say and he paid me to do something I don't know but I don't know that he stole it let's say so he says well you know somebody steals some money they Super Chat it here there go y let's let's Chuck some in mu's drag him down to this uh pit of Hell as well we're going to be bored there Yi I think we should have Muti here as well huh he's already here a he's in
he's in the in the presidential suite so now that money that they pay to someone does not is not Haram money okay so you go to a shop and you pay them money now if even if you'd stolen it I'm just saying which is a terrible thing but it doesn't mean that shopkeeper taking your money he's taken Haram money okay but you bear the sin of the crime so that's how it works so money or objects in and of themselves do
not carry a uh moral value so cool I hope that helps and and somebody may say huh give the Del AA you mean there's supposed to be a Del for things I say [Laughter]
so you want a Del as well so the people you thought I wouldn't know the Del the Del is there is a Hadith that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is with some Companions and they are offered some food by by I think I believe it's in the but anyway somebody prepares some food for them so the prophet is eating the food he's eating the food and then somebody tells
the Prophet this meat that was that we're eating that you're eating more so this was a sodak so H here you may say well this is how how you
[Music] extrapolate so why why is this point first of all it hasn't finished the Hadith but why is this point important because s is Haram for the prophet anything of the Prophet said in that any s is Haram for me and my family and and this is actually a testimony to the character of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that you see somebody in that position would have opened the
gates to receive gifts and receive you know like charity and receive like encourage people to give because Islam is encouraging so much about giving in charity the prophet himself would have been the number one portal to whom they give like that's think about it that's uh so and any person in that position may have definitely exploited that so the prophet made that Haram on himself and his family
so this meat because it's s meat it would be Haram for the prophet to eat it so the prophet says in response to the person yes it is s he says he says you see he says the was given to them that transaction ends there and them to us is a gift gift like they've just invited us and said here have some food so this Hadith it shows what is
called you think Muti just watches TV series you think I just have these books here so the is the ruling jumping across so it doesn't go across it stays in its place the technical term so this is a good uh good point people so do remember that that money it isn't you know you don't need to feel guilty uh obviously the person doing the crime is guilty but if like a person Works in a shop and all kinds of people come in and you know
maybe junkies are coming in and people that you suspect are drug dealers or like it doesn't mean that because they've bought something from your shop that you need to feel guilty okay all right so what is going on Amar saying Muti taking five minutes to make sure we know he's an actual Muti
Paragraphs overlapping 40:27 to 47:58. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2021-01-19-S13, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/hv-blbvtr4m/s/13/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, January 19). If money was earned in a haram way, is it haram for whoever receives it? [Video, segment 2021-01-19-S13, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/hv-blbvtr4m/s/13/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "If money was earned in a haram way, is it haram for whoever receives it?" Video, segment 2021-01-19-S13, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded January 19, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/hv-blbvtr4m/s/13/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-01-19-S13, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{If money was earned in a haram way, is it haram for whoever receives it?}}, year = {2021}, month = {1}, date = {2021-01-19}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/hv-blbvtr4m/s/13/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/hv-blbvtr4m/s/13/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2021-01-19-S13, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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