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What is the ruling concerning the money of a neighbor who works at a hotel that includes khamr (intoxicants) and permissible food, and is it permissible to accept his gifts or eat his food and exchange dishes with him, knowing that he does not pray but his wife is veiled and prays, and how can one act to avoid alienating them while finding a sharia-based proof?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

What has been mentioned about the neighbor, that his abandonment of prayer and denial of religion is explicit disbelief (kufr sareeh), and it is not permissible for his Muslim wife to remain married to him. His salary from working in a hotel that sells alcohol is illicit (ghayr mashru'), and the food from this man is illicit unless he has another permissible source of income. Fear of consuming forbidden things should be greater than fear of alienating others. What applies to their food also applies to their gifts and drinking coffee or water at their place, especially during Ramadan. Allah has permitted the food of the People of the Book, unless the impurity of its origin is known.

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

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