Q: With regards to the yearly souk that takes place, is there anything wrong with attending a souk? What's the difference in going to a mall to buy your needs, and going to a souk to purchase items at good prices?
Also, at the souk, many ulamaa attend. There are salaah facilities and also deeni programmes taking place there. The environment at a souk is more deeni friendly than that of a mall. Please advise.
A: When something is given an Islamic name or it is displaying some type of an Islamic flavour it is expected that they conform to basic Islamic concepts. And if they fail to do so then it would seem that the names were used just to draw clientele. Hence, Islamic names are misused and used under false pretexts. If they were to call it by any other name that had no Islamic flavour then there would not have been any expectations from the people who organised the fair. Since Islam or an Islamic name has been used, people generally feel that they have been incorrectly used.
And Allah Ta'ala (الله تعالى) knows best.
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