Making dolls and playing with them

Question

A certain man makes dolls and, having made them, gives them to girls, and he also brings and gives jewellery and the like for dressing the dolls. If someone forbids it, he declares it permissible for girls to play, and he cites as evidence the action of Hazrat ʿAʾisha Siddiqa ﵂. This man also leads the prayer as imam. What needs to be clarified is: is making dolls and girls playing with dolls permissible or not? And is the prayer behind such a man valid or not? Explain and be rewarded.

Answer

What was Hazrat ʿAʾisha Siddiqa’s ﵂ doll like — was it of cloth, or of iron, copper, brass, clay? And did it have limbs such as hands and feet, eyes, nose and the like, or not? Until the one citing this as evidence investigates these things, his argument for making and selling the dolls current in our time will not be sound.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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