Answer
Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
There is no harm in writing fiction, be it stories or poems, as long as it is written for a good purpose or for brushing aside evil.
Answering your question, Sheikh Atiyyah Saqr, the late Head of Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, states:
There is no harm in writing fiction, be it stories or poems, as long as it is written for a good purpose or for brushing aside evil, like stories where animals speak as if they are humans or take on allegorical roles.
The criterion here is that authenticated matters of the religion should be kept intact. Also, this writing should not be taken as a means to an evil end, and no evil consequence should result from this writing.
In Islam, “harm should neither be inflicted nor tolerated” as is stated in the hadith.
Some scholars, however, maintain that it is not allowed to write fiction. Their argument may be that such stories may contain falsified statements and thus are considered a waste of time. To them, these falsified statements lead to evil and should be avoided. They say that one should instead follow the manner of storytelling used in the Quran.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.