Contributing to a puja and eating puja sweets

Question

I work in the “R.M.S.” (آر، ایم، ایس). Every Thursday in the office the Hindus perform the puja (a Hindu rite of worship) of Satya Narayan. For this puja all of us employees have to give ten paise (small copper coins, fractions of a rupee), sometimes more, and sometimes also, in the name of Shivaji and the like, one or two rupees. Since we Muslims are few, we have no say. The concern is that giving the money will be shirk with wealth, and if we do not give it, they will become enemies twice over.

Answer

If there is no escape without giving the money, let them give it to those who ask, with the intention of making them its owners; then they may spend it on their own behalf wherever they please. As for the sweets and the copra, if it is necessary to take them, let them take them and then give them to some animal; let them not eat the sweets and the like of the puja and of the…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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