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What is "al-Tahassus" (eavesdropping/spying) and what is its ruling, and does the ruling differ if the matter concerns a spy, or if it was ordinary talk among family members over the phone, or if it was for the purpose of knowing the speaker's thoughts and personality?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Picking up the receiver to listen and hear what another person is saying is considered forbidden eavesdropping (tahassus muharram shar'an), unless the other person gives permission.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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