Ruling on giving flowers to the sick

Ruling on giving flowers to the sick

We wish to ask you about a phenomenon
that has started to increase in the hospitals, which is alien to the Muslims societies and
has come to us from the kaafir western societies. This is the giving of flowers to the
sick, which are bought for a high price. What is your opinion of this custom?

 

Praise be to Allaah.

Undoubtedly there is no benefit in these flowers and no
purpose in them. They do not heal the sick person or reduce his pain or bring him good
health or ward off diseases. They are merely a manufactured image of flowering plants made
by hand or by machine, and sold at a high price from which the manufacturers make a profit
and the purchasers lose out. This is no more than blind imitation of the west, without the
slightest pause for thought. These flowers are bought for a high price, and they stay with
the sick person for an hour or two, or a day or two, then they are thrown out with the
trash. It would be better to keep the money and use it for something that will serve a
purpose in some worldly or religious sense. Anyone who sees people buying or selling these
flowers should rebuke him for doing so, in the hope that he might repent and forego this
transaction which leads to nothing but loss.

Al-Lu’lu’ al-Makeen min Fataawaa al-Shaykh ibn Jibreen, p. 58