Translating advertising for forbidden things

A question from a website translator who sometimes translates restaurant and hotel offers involving alcohol or resorts for gay people, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that translation is permitted in principle, but not where it directly helps or promotes what is forbidden. ¹

The questioner said he works as a translator for a website and sometimes translates restaurant and hotel offers involving alcohol, or resorts for gay people; he asked about the ruling on his work. ¹

The Department answered that translation work is permitted in principle, provided its fields are not tied to directly assisting or promoting forbidden things. ¹ It said material that assists the forbidden may not be translated, such as advertising for what the Department regards as vice and corruption, or for drinking alcohol, pointing to the Qur'anic command to cooperate in righteousness and piety and not in sin. ¹ It concluded that translating material tied to or promoting the forbidden is not permitted, while translating what has no such connection is permitted. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 3894, dated 2 July 2024. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.