What is the ruling on children and adolescents performing plays and short dramatizations that include Islamic materials such as Quranic verses and Hadith?

Scholars have differed regarding the issue of acting, ranging from absolute prohibition to permissibility with legitimate Islamic controls. It is crucial to differentiate between lewd, forbidden acting and purposeful acting that serves Islamic or social causes.

Permissible acting must be governed by strict controls: 1. Avoiding the portrayal of Prophets, Companions, devils, disbelievers, animals, and unseen creatures, as well as men playing women's roles and vice versa. 2. Not portraying those who mock God, His verses, the Prophet, or the rituals of religion, neither seriously nor facetiously. 3. The role must not include any forbidden elements such as lying or backbiting. 4. Not portraying acts of worship, such as ablution (wudu') and prayer (salat), incorrectly. 5. Avoiding the portrayal of a wicked or immoral person, or the imams and scholars of the Ummah, out of fear of diminishing their status.

Sheikh Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen holds that inviting to Allah through means other than the Qur'an and Sunnah is blameworthy. However, if acting is used as a permissible complementary means for da'wah (invitation to Islam), and it does not include anything forbidden such as lying, or portraying disbelievers, Companions, or imams, or men imitating women and vice versa, then there is no harm in it occasionally. As for engaging in it excessively and making it the primary means of da'wah, that is forbidden.