Emailing Pictures to Mahram Relatives

By Mufti Ebrahim Desai
Posted: 10 Rabi-u-Thani 1422, 2 July 2001


Q.) I live in the USA and I observe hijab. On regular basis I chat with my family and they always request me to send my photos to them. We have a digital camera where we can take photos and delete them right away. I would like to know that, if I can take a picture of mine and send that picture file to my sister and parents and then they can delete those pictures right away. Is this allowable in the Shariah?

A.) There are differences of opinion among reliable scholars regarding the electronic capturing (video, Internet, etc.) of animate images being Tasweer (pictures and photography, etc.) or not.

Apart from that, it should be realized that anything placed on the Internet is in public domain. In its passage from source to destination, it is stored on numerous computers and can be retrieved by others, even though it may be deleted right away by sender and receiver.

And Allah Ta'ala Knows Best