Using an Islamic website for advertising lawful goods
Fatwa No: 181553

Question

Asalaamu Alaykum, JazakAllah Khairyn for the work you are doing through your website. My question is: To what extent is it permissible to make money (profit) from Islamic things? For example, if one has a service on a website where Muslims (and anyone) can put their email address and sign up for free to receive ahadith and other Islamic literature in their email on a daily or weekly basis (mainly ahadith). The website owners then also use this email list to advertise and sell halal items for commission and profit, items such as Islamic clothing, common household items, etc. A portion of the profits may be given as sadaqah but the owners of this website/service will still benefit from the remaining profits. Secondly, if one has a similar website, where they write about Islamic topics, quote relevant fatawa, give tips on how to improve salat, quote ahadith and Quranic ayats, talk about issues facing Muslims and what scholars are recommending as a fix, etc, is it permissible to make money with this sort of website (for profit), via selling advertising space on the website and putting links to products where the website generates a commission each time something is purchased through the links? JazakAllah Kharyn for your help in this matter. Asalaamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullah.

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, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

The matters which you mentioned in the question are permissible, like advertising for permissible goods, products and services and putting advertisements on the site and taking fees for doing so as long as the advertisements and the method of advertising (about it) are permissible. For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 98851.

Allaah Knows best.

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