Dolls for girls

13-5-2002 | IslamWeb

Question:

Are we allowed to buy dolls for our daughters?

---

Answer:

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the World; and may His blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions.

The dolls in use nowadays were not familiar in the time of the worthy ancestors - Allah's Mercy be upon them. For that reason today's Islamic scholars have two opinions:
(A) Prohibition of these dolls because they look like the statues which are strictly forbidden by true Islamic legitimacy. Also, dolls today don't look like the dolls in the time of the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam) which were crafted in textile and cotton, whereas dolls today are finely crafted and even programmed with sound.      
(B) Lawfulness of the doll, because its use comes within general texts of that which is legal. We find it is reported by Bukhari from Ayisha (Radiya Allahu Anha) that she said: "I was playing with the dolls (doll girls) at the home of the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam), and I had female friends playing with me. When the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam) entered the house, they (girls) hid from him, so he sent them to play with me" .
We advise the questioner to have her children use other toys, like cars, trains, … instead of the toys that are imitations of living beings with a soul. This way we will avoid disagreements, and we think this opinion is predominant and safer.
Allah knows best.