Salam alaikom I bought a floral dress lately but after some time I paid attention to the fact that their was bird pictures on it. The pictures were not obvious at the time of purchase and they are not very clear to a simple look. so I really thought I was buying a floral dress. Can you please guide me to what I should do . Salam and jazakom A llano kulla kair

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.

If the features of these pictures are not clear and are just lines and the person who looks at them does not distinguish their characteristics, then such pictures are not included – Allaah willing – in the forbidden pictures. These pictures are even more permissible than the small pictures whose features are clear, which a group of scholars opined to be lawful.

The Fiqh Encyclopedia reads: “The Hanafi scholars stated that small pictures are not included in the prohibition with regard to having it and using it, based on the fact that it is not among the practice of those who worship the pictures to use them while being in this size. They (the Hanafi scholars) determined the term ‘small’ in different ways: some of them said that it is to be not clear in a way that the one who looks at the picture does not see it except with gazing into it. Some others said that it is when it does not appear from a far distance. Al-Hasqafi, form the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, said: “It is the one (the picture) that does not show the details of the limbs [of the living being] to the looker when he is standing and when the picture is on the ground.”

However, if these pictures are clear and complete, then we have already clarified in Fatwa 83949 that it is forbidden to wear clothes which have a picture of living beings on them. As long as the picture exists and it is clear, then the ruling applies to it.

In this case, you may use this dress after removing the head (of the living being) in the picture. Also, you may benefit from it by using its cloth in some cases in which the picture is despised as ‘Aa’ishah did when she used it as a pillow.

Allaah Knows best.