Amman, Jordan
21 October 1997

Dear Sidi Hamza,

As-Salamu 'alaykum wa rahmatu Llahi wa barakatu.

I was asked about copyrights at the Shafi'i fiqh lesson at last winter's Toronto din intensive. The answer I gave was that copyrights are an issue differed about between the sheikhs I have studied with.

Sheikh 'Abd al-Wakil Durubi (Allah have mercy on him) said that they had no basis in Sacred Law. From this point of view, nothing prevents someone who has bought a book from doing anything he wants with it, including copying it and distributing copies, for commercial or noncommercial purposes.

Sheikh Nuh 'Ali Salman told me that he used to be of this opinion until talking to Sheikh Shu'ayb Arna'ut, who pointed out, in effect, that authors, editors, publishers, and others work hard for long years to produce a single work, and if their work could be lifted by anyone the moment it hit the market, they could not financially survive. Here, what prevents someone who has bought a book from copying and distributing it is the resultant darar or harm to another's livelihood, which is of course unlawful, and in which sense "copyrights" may indeed be termed "rights."

Hedaya has told me that she asked one of her legal resources at al-Azhar who mentioned the fatwa that one could reproduce one's own personal copy of a book for others, as one does have usufruct of it as the owner, but could not commercially market such copies because of the harm entailed to others' livelihoods.

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