Website: www.aaiil.uk

“Do not prohibit the use of good things”

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 24 October 2025

“O you who believe, do not forbid the good things which Allah has made lawful for you, nor exceed the limits. Surely Allah does not love those who exceed the limits. And eat of the lawful and good (things) that Allah has given you, and keep your duty to Allah, in Whom you believe.”  — ch. 5, Al-Mā’idah, v. 87–88

یٰۤاَیُّہَا الَّذِیۡنَ اٰمَنُوۡا لَا تُحَرِّمُوۡا طَیِّبٰتِ مَاۤ اَحَلَّ اللّٰہُ لَکُمۡ وَ لَا تَعۡتَدُوۡا ؕ اِنَّ اللّٰہَ لَا یُحِبُّ الۡمُعۡتَدِیۡنَ ﴿۸۷﴾ وَ کُلُوۡا مِمَّا رَزَقَکُمُ اللّٰہُ حَلٰلًا طَیِّبًا ۪ وَّ اتَّقُوا اللّٰہَ الَّذِیۡۤ اَنۡتُمۡ بِہٖ مُؤۡمِنُوۡنَ ﴿۸۸﴾

Usually people think of religion as teaching rules which forbid and prohibit various things. In case of Islam, we see Muslims being very concerned as to whether a certain thing or its use is ḥarām or not. At first sight, it might seem a preferable and cautious course of action to avoid anything which you think, or even remotely suspect, might be disallowed. Then it is guaranteed that you can’t be doing anything which is wrong. The Holy Quran in the first of the two verses that I recited tells Muslims not to declare something as forbidden which Allah has allowed, and not to exceed the limit in self-denial of what is allowed. This verse does not specifically mention food as being what is meant by “the good things which Allah has made lawful for you”, so we may take it more generally.

Now we may think that no Muslim can possibly declare something as disallowed which Allah has explicitly allowed. Yet if we take the case of concessions that Allah has allowed to us in our observance of religion, such as exemption from fasting those days in Ramadan when one is ill or travelling, or rights He has allowed us in making some decision in our lives, such as marriage or what profession to follow to earn one’s livelihood, we see in Muslim societies people saying: Yes, Allah has allowed such and such a thing, but it is better not to do it. In effect, they are forbidding what Allah has allowed, not by their words, but by their actions and disapproval.

This forbidding of good things to their own selves by Muslims can also be seen in cases of technological inventions. Printing was invented in Europe in the 1400s, enabling the mass production of books, which was not possible previously. This was taken up in Europe and within about 150 years millions of printed books had been sold in Europe. What did Muslims do? A Muslim writer has published a well-researched article entitled “How the failure to adopt the Printing Press gave Europeans a 300 year advantage over Muslims”. He writes:

“The printing press was invented in 1436; it had already spread throughout Europe and even reached Mexico. Within 20 years, Muslims began hearing about this new invention and seeing copies of these books that appear magically and miraculously. … When Muslims first encountered the printing press, the first thing they did was to ban it. In 1485, the Ottoman Caliph Sultan Bayazid II declared (with the support of all the scholars) the printing press to be haram.”

Only seven years after this, it so happened that in Spain Muslim rule was over­thrown and the new Christian rulers expelled Muslims and Jews from Spain. A signi­fi­cant number of Jews sought shelter in the Ottoman, Turkish empire. Some of the Jews, while in Spain, had printing presses. So they asked the Sultan for permission to have them in his rule as well. The article writer says:

“The Sultan agreed, but with the condition that the presses were exclusively for the Jews, to be used in their language for their own people. Furthermore, they were prohibited from selling these presses to Muslims. As a result, the Jews, and later the Christians, acquired private printing presses that they utilized for the education of their respective communities. It is no coincidence that in Ottoman lands, the most educated bureaucratic classes comprised Jews and Christians, including doctors, engineers, and other professionals. Physicians, in particular, were predominantly Christians.”

We may say, in a light-hearted way, that these restrictions which were applied to the printing press were like the restric­tions applied in Muslim countries to the sale of alcohol. Non-Muslims living under Muslim rule are allowed to buy and partake of alcohol, but they cannot sell or give it to Muslims. Similarly, at that time in the Turkish empire, non-Muslims could install printing presses, but only for their own use, and not to be given to Muslims.

The article also notes that the first printed copies of the Quran:

“were created by non-Muslims for non-Muslims since Muslims refused to engage in printing presses. The first printed copy of the Quran was produced in 1537 in Venice, Italy. … The second printed edition of the Quran appeared in 1694 in Hamburg, produced by a Jewish printer (copies of this edition can still be found in Germany). The third edition is located in Russia, yet Muslims continued to resist embracing the printing press.”

It was in the 1700s, about three centuries after the invention of the printing press, that a minister in the Ottoman government, who was in fact a Hungarian convert to Islam, persuaded the Grand Mufti to allow printing presses to be set up. The Grand Mufti gave permission on condition that nothing should be printed in Arabic, nor anything related to Islam, but only books on non-religious subjects could be printed. It was only in the 1800s that a printing press was established in Egypt. At first it printed only government manuals and text books, and later it went on to print Islamic litera­ture. It is astonishing to note that the use of the printing press in Muslim countries to produce Islamic books only started as late as after the birth of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement.

Another similar tragedy was repeated in the Indian subcontinent. During British rule of India many Muslim religious scholars declared it as impermissible for Muslims to pursue modern education given in English. Non-Muslim communities in India, in particular the Hindus, embraced modern education and surged ahead of the Muslims in all walks of educated and professional life. The damaging effects of this for Mus­lims persist till today. There were other techno­logical developments, apart from the printing press which were declared by the Muslim religious scholars as forbidden and against Islam for Muslims to use. They opposed photography on the grounds that it is like making idols and opposed the loudspeaker on the grounds that the Quran forbids people to make a loud noise like a donkey. At such a time the Founder of the Ahmad­iyya Movement proclaimed that all these modern developments in communica­tions, which allow the fast and mass spread of information all over the world, are the means brought about by Allah so that His Word may spread to all parts of the world.

Among the good things which Muslim forbade to themselves was translating the Quran from Arabic into other languages. Even less than a hundred years ago, some Muslim religious scholars in Egypt opposed the efforts of Mr Marmaduke Pickthall to publish an English translation of the Quran when he went there in 1930. Yet, long before this, Christians in their efforts to convert Muslims all over the world to Christianity, had translated the Bible into almost all languages of the world.

The first verse which I recited, which begins: “O you who believe, do not forbid the good things which Allah has made lawful for you”, does not mention food. The second verse does mention food when it says:

“And eat of the lawful and good (things) that Allah has given you.”

A verse in the next chapter, chapter 6, sheds more light on this. It says:

“Say: I do not find in what is revealed to me anything forbidden for an eater to eat of, except if it is what dies of itself, or blood poured forth, or the flesh of swine — for that surely is unclean — or what is a transgression, other than the name of Allah having been invoked on it. But whoever is driven by necessity, not desiring nor exceeding the limit, then surely your Lord is Forgiving, Merciful.” (6:145)

Notice that the wording here could have just said: These things are forbidden. Instead, it tells the Holy Prophet to say that in his revelation there is nothing forbidden to eat except the following list. There are two points in this wording. Firstly, the prohi­bi­tion relates only to eating the things mentioned. It does not forbid their use for purposes other than eating. It mentions eating twice in the words “for an eater to eat of.” Secondly, the items in that list are the only ones forbidden for a Muslim to eat, because it clearly says that nothing is forbidden except these.

Muslims, trying to be extra careful, sometimes think that the use of these forbidden things is prohibited for every purpose. Some Muslims have expressed concerns about blood transfusions and accepting organ donations. But their concerns are not justified by the Quran. Every creation has some use and benefit for humans. It is the manner of use in a certain way which becomes forbidden. In the end part of this verse, even the eating of the forbidden items is allowed in case of forced or unavoidable need. That further shows that their use for valid purposes other than eating is perfectly allowable.

As regards the permission to eat the forbidden things in case of dire necessity, it could happen that someone is in a situation where there is nothing available to eat except a forbidden thing, although this seems unlikely. But there have been deplorable incidents in the past when Muslims under persecution were forced to eat pork under threat of being killed if they refused to do so. When Spain was re-conquered by Christians in the 1400s the new rulers forced many Jews and Muslims in Spain to embrace Christianity. And these people were required to prove that they had actually become Christians, and were not just saying it to save their lives. The way of proving this was to be fed with pork in front of the new religious authorities of Spain, otherwise your conversion would be considered as false and a pretence. According to Islam, if a person remained Muslim at heart, it would not be a sin to submit to this form of coercion, because the alternative was to face execution, and this verse ends by assuring those facing such situations that:

“then surely your Lord is Forgiving, Merciful”.

So we can now see how wisely, liberally and comprehensively the Quran has dealt with the question of what is prohibited, and it has not burdened Muslims with impractical burdens to bear. May Allah enable us to follow its teachings ­—  Ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk