Selling empty wine bottles

Question

Is it permissible to collect and sell empty wine bottles or not? These bottles go to the liquor company, and wine is filled into them.

Answer

A bottle is property of value (mal mutaqawwim); buying and selling it is in itself permissible. Whoever fills wine into it is himself responsible for his act. Some imams have forbidden this too, since in it as well there is a kind of assisting in sin (i‘ana ‘ala al-ma‘siya): [ar]وهو الأحوط[/ar] “And that is the more cautious.”

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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