Ruling on selling newspapers
Question

                I live in a European country. Is it permissible for me to work delivering newspapers to houses, knowing that in these newspapers there may be pictures of women or other kinds of news that goes against our sharee’ah? Please note that I do not read them or look at what is inside them.
Praise be to Allah.Newspapers, magazines and 
    other kinds of publications fall into three categories: 
1 – Newspapers and 
    magazines that spread good and virtue, and follow Islamic guidelines in what 
    they publish, and do not contain anything that is obviously wrong. It is 
    permissible to buy, sell and distribute such publications, according to 
    scholarly consensus. 
2 – Newspapers and 
    magazines that spread evil and corruption, and do not respect any morals, 
    sharee’ah or good taste. Their pages are filled with pictures of adorned 
    women and their articles promote sin or poisonous thinking, and they are 
    generally corrupt and immoral, such as indecent newspapers and magazines 
    that speak about actors and actresses, or those that have titles such as 
    “Woman’s World” or “Fashion World”, or newspapers supervised by those whose 
    thinking is toxic and who seek to attack Islam or mock the sharee’ah. It is 
    not permissible to sell, buy or distribute such publications, rather we 
    should denounce everyone who works for them and helps to publish them. 
Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azeez ibn 
    Baaz (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: 
The newspapers of this 
    type, i.e., those that publish indecent pictures or revile those who seek to 
    spread Islam, or seek to prevent da’wah, or which publish heretical articles 
    and the like – such newspapers should be boycotted and should not be bought. 
    The state – if it is an Islamic state – should ban them, because they harm 
    the society and harm the Muslims. The Muslim should not buy them or 
    distribute them, and he should call upon others to boycott them too and 
    encourage people not to keep them or buy them. The authorities who are able 
    to ban them should do so, or tell them to do good things and give up evil. 
Majmoo’ al-Fataawa 
    (8/176). 
Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may 
    Allaah have mercy on him) said: 
There are magazines – we 
    ask Allaah to keep us safe and sound – that promote promiscuity and 
    corruption, either with their indecent words or their indecent images. It is 
    not permissible for anyone whom Allaah has put in charge of his family to 
    keep these newspapers in his house at all. He must oppose them fiercely and 
    fight them as he would fight a fire with water. He should tear them up in 
    front of his children, so that they will know that they are haraam and 
    represent falsehood. But if he brings them to his family, or sees them 
    buying it and approves of that, by Allaah he is not taking care of them 
    properly. 
It is very strange that 
    people spend their money on these magazines that contain material that 
    affects morals and beliefs. Is there any greater waste of money than this?  
If a person were to walk 
    though the marketplace and scatter money on the ground, that would be better 
    than buying these magazines and giving them to his children, because by 
    buying these magazines he is doing something haraam and supporting falsehood 
    and promoting the spread of evil among his family. If he were to scatter 
    money on the ground, perhaps a poor person would pick it up and benefit from 
    it. 
So we must advise one 
    another to shun these indecent magazines. 
Al-Liqa’ al-Shahriyyah 
    (no. 39, question no. 6). 
In Fataawa al-Shaykh 
    ‘Abd al-Kareem al-Khudayr (60) it says: 
Working for these 
    newspapers and magazines which are mostly filled with haraam material is not 
    permissible, and the income earned from that work is also haraam, because 
    when Allaah forbids a thing He also forbids its price. It is also haraam to 
    distribute them, read them, buy them or sell them, or do anything else that 
    has to do with them, rather they must be boycotted. End quote. 
3 – Newspapers and 
    magazines which contain mostly permissible material, such as local and 
    international news, and some intellectual and political articles, and some 
    scientific articles and other permissible things. They may not be not free 
    of some pictures of adorned women or some liberal articles or unacceptable 
    ideas, but most of what they contain is permissible. There is nothing wrong 
    with selling these, buying them and distributing them, because the 
    permissible aspect outweighs the unaccaptable, but the one who reads them 
    should get rid of the haraam pictures in them, either by tearing them up or 
    not looking at them, and we should all try to advise those who are in charge 
    of them to rid their newspapers of all haraam content. 
Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may 
    Allaah have mercy on him) was asked about the ruling on local newspapers 
    that are published here – i.e., in Saudi. 
He replied: 
I do not think that there 
    is anything wrong with them, unless they contain bad ideas or indecent 
    pictures. 
The same questioner asked: 
    They contain news about sports, acting and music and promote these things. 
The Shaykh said: You should 
    ignore this one and not buy it. 
The questioner said: The 
    magazine is bound to have sections that cover these topics.  
The Shaykh said: By Allaah, 
    I do not know. I think that if a person does not know what is going on in 
    the world he is falling short. It is better to say that if you like to find 
    out about world news, buy this newspaper, because most of it is not like 
    what you think, and that can be torn up. 
The same questioner asked 
    the Shaykh about a shopkeeper selling it – can he sell newspapers such as 
    al-Jareedah, al-Riyaadh, ‘Ukaaz [names of Saudi 
    newspapers] etc?  
The Shaykh said: If it is 
    permissible to buy them it is permissible to sell them, because sale is a 
    contract between two people. 
Liqa’aat al-Baab 
    il-Maftooh (no. 99, question no. 9) 
Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may 
    Allaah have mercy on him) said: 
With regard to Islamic 
    magazines that contain pictures, it is a sign of perfect faith not to make 
    the magazine all pictures. There are well known magazines such as those that 
    are filled with pictures or fashion magazines – it is not permissible to buy 
    or sell these magazines, or to keep them. And there are magazines which 
    publish news and articles, but they may contain a picture of the speaker or 
    writer, or a picture of some scene. These are not haraam, but is it 
    permissible to keep them or must every single picture be erased? It seems 
    that it is not essential to erase every single picture, because the pictures 
    are not the purpose of the magazines. The person who buys a newspaper is not 
    buying it for the pictures only, so we can differentiate between magazines 
    and newspapers that are focused on presenting images and those that do not 
    focus on presenting images, but which contain images. It is haraam to sell, 
    buy or keep the former, but it is not haraam in the case of the latter.  
Liqaa’aat al-Baab 
    il-Maftooh (no. 132. question no. 16) 
Shaykh ‘Abd-Allaah ibn 
    Jibreen (may Allaah preserve him) said: 
With regard to magazines, 
    if they are indecent and promote evil and immorality, it is haraam to sell 
    them, make money from them or deal in them. 
If the pictures in them are 
    of an ordinary type, and they are free of immoral content, then there is 
    nothing wrong with selling them, because of the knowledge, lessons and 
    permissible material that they contain, and because the pictures are not the 
    main purpose in them. 
Fataawa Islamiyyah 
    (2/372) 
It seems to us – after 
    asking some of those who live in European countries – that the newspapers in 
    those countries are of the second type, because they contain attacks on 
    Islam and present a distorted image of the Muslims, and they contain 
    advertisements for brothels, nightclubs, alcohol and gambling. 
Our advice to you is to 
    give up this job and look for permissible work, even if the pay is less. 
We ask Allaah to suffice us 
    with that which He has permitted so that we will have no need of that which 
    He has forbidden. 
And Allaah knows 
    best.