Listening to bigoted news sources to criticize them

28-4-2016 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalaamu alaykum. Sorry for my reply. Anyway, I follow the Maliki madhab, and I received the fatwa for my question, fatwa No 312007; the title is 'Learning a language from a source prejudiced against Muslims'. I just want to clarify my question so that there is no misunderstanding. I mean, let us say that you are learning English and that you are using, for example, CNN, which is a news channel mouthpiece for Washington, and when it comes to political or geopolitical news, they are biased; for example, they support Israel. Also, most of the news, even some Muslim, Arab news channels are biased because it is all about the political and geopolitical or even economic interest of their nation. So, is it permissible to learn from CNN, for example, or you should only listen and read their local news? I mean, their local stories or technology or economic and so on, and then when it comes to geopolitical coverage, you should not listen to them or if you are intelligent you can listen and read anything because you know their agenda? Also, what about other news resources who criticize Muslims or Islam, like Fox News, for example? I mean, sometimes I just watch them for fun, to laugh at their bigotry and criticize them in the comment section, so is it permissible to learn vocabulary from this channel?

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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 is His slave and Messenger.

We will summarize the answer to your question as follows:

As we have mentioned to you in the previous fatwa, this, we mean hearing the news and learning the language and so on, can often be achieved from sources other than these channels, which contain Islamic prohibitions that we have already mentioned, that you referred to in the question

When there is a need to listen to them to comment on what they broadcast of defaming Muslims and the like, then this should only be done by those who are safe from temptation and from being affected by these sources.

Allaah knows best.