We are planning to establish an Islamic Centre/Mosque, in a small city in England. Can we use lottery money that is given to us by the government? Is it Halal to use lottery money to build a mosque?

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.

It is lawful to use such money in building this mosque, although it is more appropriate to use only money from lawful sources.

For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 85043.

We remind you that the ruling of permissibility is limited to the fact that the money is actually in your hand. Now, if you have to look for it for the purpose of building the mosque, then that is unlawful as the aim does not justify the means. We told you that this is lawful only if the money is already in your hand because one of the ways of getting rid of ill-gotten money is to spend it in good avenues that have a general interest for Muslims, like building mosques.

Allah knows best.