Monday, December 3, 2012

Her work is putting together da‘wah pamphlets and she takesquotes from here and there (instead of writingthem herself)

The nature of my work isputting together religious and da'wah
pamphlets for an Islamic centre, but I am not very good at writing, so
I have no choice but to copy poetry and other literary works by poets
and writers. I copy metaphors and other eloquent turns of phrase,
beautiful wording and brilliant ways of presenting ideas, then I try
to change it a little by adding and subtracting some words to make it
suit the topic of the pamphlet that I am writing, so that the article
is a composition of things with some alterations, and I do not add any
sentence of my own except rarely. The result is an article that is
very moving and conveys the basic idea. Isthis regarded as
stealingwork and is it not permissible for me to do this? I have been
doing this for more than two years, but now I have realised what I
have been doing. I cannot tell my bosses and colleagues the truth. Is
the salary that I am taking regarded as haraam wealth?.
Praise be to Allaah.
There is nothing wrong with learning and quoting from what others have
written of beautiful phrases, eloquent words and brilliant
presentations inthe manner that you have mentioned, so that the
article will be moving and coherent from beginning to end. Writers are
always quoting from one another, looking for material, and putting
together sentences and paragraphs. Choosing the most appropriate
material requires time and effort. Perhaps by doing this you will
reacha stage where you no longer need to quote so much.
What is not permissible in this regard is stealing the articles and
publications of others, or stealing entire passages from them. As for
taking sentences andwords from a number of articles, it does not
seemto be the case that this comes under the heading of stealing or
theft.
It is also not allowed for a person to pretend to have something that
he does not have in order to give his colleagues the impression that
these moving words are his creation or production. Rather he should be
honest with himself and others, and point out that his efforts are
limited to compiling,putting together, selecting the right wordsand
benefiting from the work of others.
It was narrated from Asma' (may Allah be pleased with her) that the
Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: The one who
pretends to have been given something that he was not given is like
the one who wears two garments of falsehood."
Narrated by al-Bukhaari (5219) and Muslim (2129)
And Allah knows best.

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