Income from a cinema

Question

Question: Zayd has a “mini film” (i.e. a small cinema), which he rents out for two hundred rupees a night. People forbid him, saying: “Desist from this haram business.” With his mouth he calls it bad, but in practice he keeps the cinema running. Bakr said to Zayd: “Why do you consume the haram? For one thing, watching cinema is a sin and you show it, and you also fill your belly with the income.

Answer

Even if a change of ownership (tabdil milk) takes the ruling of a change of the thing itself (tabaddul ‘ayn), how would that make the income of the cinema proper, and how would this business become permissible?

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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