Describing something as blessed while it is actually not so
Fatwa No: 145195

Question

hi, is it an act of kufr to say something is mubarak when its actually not? for example if take a picture of ayat with my phone, is it kufr if i then say that my phone is mubarak because i have a picture of the quran in it?

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

It appears – Allaah Knows best – that describing someone or something as being blessed due to the good existing in him/it is permissible and there is no sin in doing so, Allaah willing. Hence, if a person describes his phone that it is blessed for the good that it contains, i.e. the Quran, for example, then it is permissible for him to say so. Indeed, it is reported in Sharee'ah texts that the date-palm tree was described as being blessed and the Muslim was also described as such. ‘Abdullaah Ibn ‘Umar said: “While we were sitting with the Prophet a spadix of a date–palm tree was brought to him. On that he said: “Among the trees, there is a tree which is as blessed as a Muslim." So, I thought that he meant the date-palm tree and I wanted to say to him: “It is the date–palm tree, O Prophet of Allaah.”, but when I looked around, I found that I was the tenth and youngest of ten men present there, so I kept quiet. Then, the Prophet said: “It is the date–palm tree.” [Al-Bukhari]

On the other hand, it is not permissible to describe a forbidden or evil thing as being blessed, nor is it permissible to describe a non-Muslim as such because there is no blessing in all of this and this statement may even lead to Kufr [disbelief] in some cases depending on the belief of the person who says it, like if one considers the rites and acts of worship of the non-Muslims to be blessed. Al-Hattaab from the Maaliki School of jurisprudence said: “Al-Bulqeeni was asked about a Muslim who said to a Thimmi (a non-Muslim living under Muslim rule) in one of their religious festivals: “Blessed ‘Eed (feast) to you.”, will he go out of the fold of Islam or not?” He answered: “If the Muslim says so to Thimmi in order to glorify their religion and their ‘Eed, then he becomes a disbeliever, but if he did not intend that and said it by mistake, then he does not become a disbeliever for saying that without intending it.

Allaah Knows best

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