Is a Muslim's work as a gardener in a German cemetery for unbelievers, where he prunes trees, plants flowers, and gathers fallen leaves from graves without digging or burying, permissible or forbidden, especially with advancing age and the difficulty of finding alternative work?
It is not permissible to work in the graveyards of disbelievers for several considerations:
Firstly: They are places of torment, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, forbade entering the dwellings of those who were punished, except for taking a lesson. Scholars have generalized this prohibition to all places of torment, whether worldly or in the (interim state between death and resurrection).
Secondly: They contain symbols of disbelief (crosses), and working there necessitates abandoning the enjoining of good and forbidding of evil.
Thirdly: It involves humiliation for the Muslim and glorification of the disbeliever, and it is not permissible for a Muslim to debase himself before a disbeliever.
An exception to this is a state of necessity, in which case it is permissible to work only to the extent that the necessity is averted, until the Muslim finds another job.
Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · imported
Read the full answer on Ftawyhttps://ftawy.com/en/questions/63333
Where this answer came from
- Source platform
- Ftawy
- Original fatwa ID
- 63333
- Imported
- Translation status
- Source text, unreviewed
- Read the full ruling
- Read the full answer on Ftawy