The Ruling on Working for a Church, Temple, or Place of Shirk | Shaykh Salih Al-Fawzan

2,408 views·Jun 14, 2026

📌 In this fatwa, Shaykh Salih al-Fawzan explains the ruling on working in places of shirk and the worship of other than Allah, such as churches, shrines, and similar establishments. He clarifies the ruling on the wages earned from such employment and discusses the obligation of repentance for one who has fallen into it. The Shaykh further explains that the wages earned from such work are muharram earnings and that the individual must repent to Allah. He advises that giving away the money earned from such employment in charity is a sign of sincere remorse and repentance. The Shaykh concludes by emphasizing that a Muslim is not permitted to assist the people of falsehood, nor to work for wages in places associated with shirk, paganism, the kuffar, and the mushrikin, because doing so constitutes assistance upon falsehood and approval of evil. 📌 Fatwa Reference: ماحكم العمل في كنيسة وما حكم الأجرة التي يحصل عليها؟ الشيخ صالح بن فوزان الفوزان https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hRn4dqJK9g ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ The Murji'ah conflate the outward rulings pertaining to legislative names and labels with the inward rulings pertaining to legislative punishments. - The outward ruling is the worldly judgment based solely on a person’s outward statements and actions. It does not depend on what is in the heart. - The inward ruling concerns the hidden reality of the heart, which cannot be known. It is only considered in matters of punishment and the ruling of the Hereafter. Ignorance, coercion, mistake, and denial are considered here, not in the outward ruling. ✍ The Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fatwas in Saudi Arabia. Fatwah no. 4400: 👉 (❗) "So clarifying the matter and establishing the proof (Iqāmat al-hujjah) is for the purpose of removing any excuse before carrying out the PUNISHMENT upon him, NOT in order for him to be called a kafir only after the clarification. 👉 (❗) Rather, he IS CALLED a kafir based on the outward act he committed. Such as prostrating to other than Allah, vowing as an act of worship to other than Him, or slaughtering an animal, like a sheep, for other than Allah.” 📚 Source:Kitāb Fatāwā al-Lajnah al-Dāʾimah – First Collection, vol. 1, p. 220 https://shamela.ws/book/8381/396#p1 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ The methodology of Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jamaah: The outward ruling is based exclusively on statements and actions. Matters of the heart are only considered in punishment and the final judgment, in this world by the judge and in the Hereafter by Allah. ✍️ Al-Hafidh Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 852H) in Fath al-Bari (12/272), transmitting consensus: وكلهم أجمعوا على أن أحكام الدنيا على الظاهر، والله يتولى السرائر “THEY ALL UNANIMOUSLY AGREED that worldly rulings are based upon what is outwardly apparent, while Allah alone takes charge of what lies within.” End Quote ✍️ Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728H) said in As-Sarim al-Maslul (2/339): فمن قال أو فعل ما هو كفر, كفر بذلك، وإن لم يقصد أن يكون كافرًا، إذ لا بقصد الكفر أحدّ إلًّا ما شاء الله. “Whoever says or does that which is kufr, then he becomes a kafir by that itself, even if he did not intend to become a disbeliever, for no one intends kufr except whom Allah wills.” End Quote ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Authentic and True — From the Scholars to You ✦ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #Islam #Quran #Sunnah #Aqeedah #Salafi #salafiyyah #Bidah #IslamicAdvice #IslamicReminders #SeekingKnowledge #Tawheed #Muslim #Fiqh #scholarsofsunnah #AhlusSunnah #IslamicClips #IslamicShorts #Creed #IslamicEducation #IslamicLecture #MuslimYouth #Knowledge #IslamicGuidance #Shariah #Reminder #ShirkAkbar #ExcuseOfIgnorance #Takfir #Iman #Kufr #SalafiDawah #AhlusSunnahWalJamaah #ManhajSalaf #IslamicCreed #UsulAlDeen #KitabAlTawhid #ScholarsOfIslam #IbnBaz #IbnUthaymeen #LajnahDaimah #Clarification #Refutation #SeekKnowledge #Ilm #Dawah #Truth #Guidance #SunnahWay #Hajj #DhulHijjah #EidAlAdha #DaysOfDhulHijjah #Pilgrimage #Udhiyah #Qurbani #Hajj2026 #IslamicRe