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Cutting heads of plastic toys to deface them

Question

Assalaamu alaykum. This is regarding to question No. 350809. Firstly, I want to thank you for your reply. I have attempted to ruin the features of the toys, but unfortunately, some of them are made of extremely hard plastic, and additionally, I have maybe over 1,000 of them. I attempted to use a cutting instrument to remove the heads of these toys, but it is extremely difficult, and even if I successfully removed them, the issue then is what I do with the toys' heads? With so many of them, and with them being so solid and hard, it is very exhausting to deal with even a handful. There are so many of them that when I packed them away, they filled many boxes (they are small, and there are many of them). Trying to deface them is very difficult for me.

Answer

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, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

What we can do, is underline the permissibility of cutting the heads of these statues. Abu Hurayrah  may  Allaah  be  pleased  with  him reported that the Messenger of Allah, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, said, “Jibreel (Gabriel)  may  Allaah  exalt  his  mention came to me and said, ‘I came to you last night, and nothing prevented me from entering except that there were images at the door, and there was a curtain inside the house with images on it, and there was a dog in the house. So order to cut the head of the image in the house so that it becomes like a tree stump...’” [Abu Dawood]

As for the manner of doing that, it is up to you to decide. You will surely find a way to cut the heads, given that we live in an age of modern tools that cut steel, let alone plastic.

You asked, “...and even if I successfully removed them, the issue then is what I do with the toys' heads?” The answer is that you can throw them in the trash or any other disposal site; it is a simple and easy task, by the permission of Allah.

Allah knows best.

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