Is It Permissible To Share Access to a Paid Quran Course?
Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch
Question
I was approached by a Muslim brother who asked me to share access to a Quran course that I had bought.
I told him that he should buy it himself as the brothers who made the course would be deprived of their money, and individuals were meant to buy it, and they did not allow us to share with anyone beyond our household.
However, the brother countered this by saying I would get hasanaat if I spread this knowledge with him. I am apprehensive about being blameworthy/sinful if I deprive this brother of knowledge; what should I do?
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate
Sharing a Quran course without the express permission of the organization that produced it is not permissible. This is especially true if with your subscription came proprietary materials included in it.
This is the opinion of most contemporary scholars due to the evident value of intellectual property and the harm of undermining the costs and efforts of producing such materials to spread Islamic knowledge.
See this for complete details.
Are Copyrights Valid As It Relates to Islamic Content That Benefits Muslims, or Can We Freely Download and Share It?
Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.
