Details of Fatwa
Title of Fatwa
Can I Share an Iftar Meal with My Christian Friend?
Date of Reply 10/Nov/2003
Topic Of Fatwa Da`wah to Non- & New Muslims
Country Applied Egypt
Question of Fatwa Dear Sheikh! Ramadan Mubarak! I have a simple question for you. Can I have Iftar (i.e. to have an Iftar meal) at the house of my Christian friend?
Name of Mufti Muhammad Muhammad Abu Laylah
Content of Reply
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear questioner, thank you for your question and the confidence you place in our service and we pray to Allah to enable us render this service purely for His Sake.
In the first place, we'd like to note that we must always be positive and work for the best. We should thank Allah for His Blessings and pray to Him to remove the difficulties. We should seize the opportunity of this blessed month to the life which is REAL and feel the sweetness of faith and the introduce Islam, with its tolerance and kindness to all our relative, neighbors, friends, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Indeed, Ramadan is a great opportunity to turn to Allah, to do the good deeds. We should take good advantage of this time. In addition to fasting and prayers in this month, you can invite your non-Muslims neighbors, civic and political leaders, interfaith leaders to have Iftar with you and tell them about Islam, its beautiful message. Try to remove whatever misunderstanding they may have about Islam and Muslims.
Answering the question, Dr. Muhammad M. Abu Laylah, professor of Islamic studies and head of the English Department, faculty of languages and translation at Al-Azhar University, states the following:
"Dearest brother in Islam, there is nothing wrong in having your Iftar meal with your Christian friend, but you should tell your friend about what sort of food your friend is going to provide.
Our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had visited Christians and Jews and he is reported to have shared meals with them.
Referring to this, Allah Almighty says: "…The food of those who have received the Scripture is lawful for you, and your food is lawful for them…" (Al-Ma'dah: 5)
Based on the above verse, we can deduce that you are allowed to share food with the People of the Book and take them as friends. Allah Almighty says: "Allah forbiddeth you not those who warred not against you on account of religion and drove you not out from your homes, that ye should show them kindness and deal justly with them. Lo ! Allah loveth the just dealers. Allah forbiddeth you only those who warred against you on account of religion and have driven you out from your homes and helped to drive you out, that ye make friends of them. Whosoever maketh friends of them(All) such are wrong doers." (Al-Mumtahanah: 8-9)"
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