Income from a guest house

Question

Question: We want to build a guest house in Bombay. Some people coming from outside also stay in this guest house, but most often it is pleasure-seekers from Bombay itself who come and book a room, bring along some girl (woman), stay two or three hours, and pay the room rent for 24 hours — forty or fifty rupees. Those staying say that they are husband and wife, and mostly they do not have any luggage with them. In this situation, is it permissible to run a guest-house business, and is its income halal or haram?

Answer

Building a travellers’ inn and taking rent for staying in it is proper. If, despite the effort that no evil be committed there, those who come still commit evil, the sin of it will not be upon the people of the inn, and the rental income will not be called impermissible.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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