Question:
Assalaamu'alaikum, I would like to open a shop selling health and beauty products. Unfortunately most of these products have pictures of women in very revealing clothes posing in very provcative manner. The posters to advertise them are more terrible. So I can sell products that have pictures of women not covering their awrah? I can put these products on open shelves where they are visible? Can I sell them if cover the pictures.
Fatwa:
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.
In principle it is permissible to sell beauty products if they did not include impure or any forbidden ingredients like pork fat and the like. There is no exception to this principle except if one is extremely that the buyer will use these products in what is forbidden or helps what is forbidden, like a woman who buys these products to beautify herself to other than her husband or to cause temptation by applying these products on herself while not wearing her Hijab . So if one is predominantly certain about a specific woman or a specific society, then it is forbidden to sell to her or them.
As regards selling product on which there are pictures of women who are scantily dressed, if these pictures are on the covering of these products, in a way that one may throw the cover, like some pictures on some soap and shampoo covers, and the like, then this is really a great calamity. So one is obliged to avoid these as much as he can; in addition to this, these pictures are not especially targeted in the sale, and they are not meant to spread corruption.
With regard to the posters on which there are pictures of women, it is forbidden to hang them, also the pictures of women scantily dressed are forbidden as they propagate for the spread of fornication and adultery, so one must avoid them as they spread corruption and evil [fornication and adultery] and incite one's desires. Allah Says (what means): {Indeed, those who like that the crime of illegal sexual intercourse should be spread [or publicized] among those who have believed will have a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter.}[Quran 24:20].
It is an obligation to prevent evil which leads to something forbidden; this includes selling them by advertising them on shelves and the like.
As regards concealing these pictures of scantily dressed women, if you men covering them with something which one could take off, then this does not change their ruling as what is forbidden still remains. But if these pictures are totally removed, then it is permissible to sell and hang them as the pictures do no longer exist.
Allah Knows best.
Fatwa answered by:The Fatwa Center at Islamweb