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What is the ruling on buying books, translating them, and selling them without the author's permission? Is it permissible to adopt the view of those who permit this, or is it sufficient to summarize them, translate them, and sell them?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Copyrights, inventions, and innovations are protected by Islamic law, and it is not permissible to infringe upon them. Their owners have the right to dispose of them. It is not permissible to record tapes or photocopy books and sell them without the permission of their owners if they prohibit it, unless it is for personal use. Summarizing books, translating them, or translating their summaries and publishing them for profit is permissible as long as their owners do not prohibit it. If they prohibit it, then it is not permissible except for personal use.

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

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