Selling gold coins with figures

24-9-2001 | IslamWeb

Question:

You are kindly requested to answer the following questions received from one of my brothers in Islam: Are Muslims allowed to purchase and promote selling gold coins with figures?

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Answer:

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the World; and blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions.
Photos and pictures of living beings - people or animals - should not be bought or preserved by Muslims under any circumstances. This is because keeping these pictures and photos might lead to glorifying them, especially if they are pictures of known and famous people like scientists, scholars, leaders, and even friends and relatives. In fact, temptation, which led to disbelief through this kind of pictures, is known through out history. The people of Prophet Noah (Peace and blessing be upon him) went astray because of such pictures. Al Bukhari reported from Ibn Abbas that he said while interpreting the verse: "And they have said: 'You shall not leave your gods, nor shall you leave Wadd, nor Suwâ', nor Yaghûth, nor Ya'ûq, nor Nasr (names of the idols);" .[71:23]
He said these names (of the idols) formerly belonged to some pious men of the people of Noah, and when they died Satan inspired their people to (prepare) and place idols at the places where they used to sit, and to call those idols by their names. The people did so, but the idols were not worshipped till those people (who initiated them) had died and the origin of the idols had become obscure, whereupon people began worshipping them. [Reported by Imam Al Bukhari].
Allah knows best.