Ruling on images printed on products labels

30-4-2017 | IslamWeb

Question:

I am a foodstuff merchant, and sometimes there are images and drawings on the labels of some products, such as cheese whose brand contains an image of a little shepherd, a drawing of a cow, or something like that. Please provide me with the correct answer.

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

It is permissible to sell food products or other things with images on their labels. That is because the object that is sold and bought is that which is packed or canned inside the containers. It is known that once the buyer empties the cans or bags that have such images, he discards them like any other rubbish items. This means that these images do not affect the permissibility of selling what Allah Almighty has made it permissible to sell. Moreover, this phenomenon has spread on such a large scale that it makes it almost impossible to avoid selling or buying such products.

It should be taken into consideration that this kind of images is considered permissible by some scholars due two reasons:

First: it does not have a shadow.

Second: it is not respected or honored.

To support their opinion, they quoted the Hadeeth narrated on the authority of ‘Aa’ishah when she said:

We had a curtain which had an image of a bird, and it was the first to be seen by anyone who entered the house. So the Prophet said to me, "Move this curtain to another place, because every time I enter, I remember (the pleasures of) the worldly life." [Muslim]

This Hadeeth indicates that if such a type of images was forbidden, the Prophet would have ordered her to tear it out and discard it, but he just asked her to move it away.

Allah knows best.