Question

Asalamalaikum,
I read that having pictures of animals in ones house is haram. I have picture of bird and butterflies on my tea sets and dinner plates which were a bit pricey (cannot return I bought them many years ago). Should I dispose of them or give them away? I was told to paint over the birds head.
Question
1-If I paint the eyes of the bird the colour of the birds feather and keep the outline of bird with the beak is that permissiable?
2-Also do butterflies come into the same category as animals?

In case you want to see the picture of the crockery, enter the description in google.
bird- “pip studio blushing bird bowl yellow 12cm”.
butterfly- “pip studio blushing bird dinner plate khaki 26.5cm”

Lastly, some of my crockery is fine bone China. Can I use that or is that not correct?
Jazakallah

Answer

In order to make the plates and cups useable you will need to edit the image, whether this is by painting over the image or some other way. You will need to remove those parts of the body which are essential for life. In the case of the bird you will need to remove the facial features like the beak and eyes. As for the butterflies you can keep the wings and remove the small head or body of the butterfly.

Fine bone china contains bone ash usually derived from cattle. There would be no harm in using such crockery if the bone was actually derived from cattle or any other animal as long as it was not derived from pig.

الدر المختار وحاشية ابن عابدين (رد المحتار) (1/ 648)
أو مقطوعة الرأس أو الوجه) أو ممحوة عضو لا تعيش بدونه
قوله أو مقطوعة الرأس) أي سواء كان من الأصل أو كان لها رأس ومحي، وسواء كان القطع بخيط خيط على جميع الرأس حتى لم يبق له أثر، أو بطليه بمغرة أو بنحته، أو بغسله لأنها لا تعبد بدون الرأس عادة

…

وأما قطع الرأس عن الجسد بخيط مع بقاء الرأس على حاله فلا ينفي الكراهة لأن من الطيور ما هو مطوق فلا يتحقق القطع بذلك، وقيد بالرأس لأنه لا اعتبار بإزالة الحاجبين أو العينين لأنها تعبد بدونها

Answered by:
Ifta Research Fellow

Checked & Approved by:
Mufti Abdul Rahman Mangera
Mufti Zubair Patel