Doing shopping for non-Muslim elderly neighbors

26/05/2010| IslamWeb

Question:

Salaam Alikum brothers. I live in an area of London where majority of my neighbors are old ladies and all of them are either Jews or Christians. Due to my religious duty to help neighbors I do their shopping, because I am busy on weekdays and the only time I can help them is one day of weekend where I do their shopping. I do most of their shopping except Alcohol, I have informed them that I can not do. I just realized that 80% of the shopping includes ingredients which consists of pork which is also forbidden in Islam. So what can I do, and please advice me on how to approach them and inform them. Becuase I really like to help them, and their children only comes to see them once a year, which makes people sad.

 

Fatwa:

 

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.

 

Undoubtedly, helping neighbours is something urged in Islamic Law especially if this is with the intention of calling a non-Muslim neighbour to Islam. However, this is not a sound reason for committing prohibitions.

 

Buying pork is forbidden, but since you did not know that those products contained pork, then we hope that you are not sinful.

However, it is not permissible for you to continue buying these products for them, and you should inform them that it is not permissible in Islam to buy pork in the same way you informed them about alcohol.

 

You should seize this opportunity to call them to Islam, and inform them about the recent surveys which show that pork causes serious diseases and that the Quran forbade it 14 centuries before these surveys were carried out. This will be the occasion to call them to Islam as the Prophet Yoosuf (Joseph), may Allah exalt his mention, did with his two inmates when he interpreted the dream for them.

 

Allah Knows best.

 

Fatwa answered by: The Fatwa Center at Islamweb