A woman has been charged with checking her husband’s phone without his knowledge, and Dubai’s Grand Mufti confirms that such behaviour is Haram.

Checking someone else’s phone without their permission is officially haram according to the highest official of religious law in Dubai.

Dr Ali Ahmed Mashael, the Grand Mufti at the Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department in Dubai, told Emirates 24/7 that “spying or checking on somebody else’s phone without permission is committing a forbidden act”.

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This statement comes just days after news broke of a woman in Ajman being charged for secretly looking at her husband’s phone. Gulf News reported that the woman was Arab and in her thirties and that she’s been fined Dhs150,000 and will be deported.

She is accused of having transferred photos from her husband’s phone to hers via WhatsApp after suspecting him of having an affair, he then lodged a complaint with the Ajman court.

The woman was charged under criminal penal code No. 212 and the cybercrime law, which clarifies that it is illegal to “use a computer network and/or electronic information system or any information technology for the invasion of privacy of another person…”

Dubai’s Grand Mufti Mashael backed up this decision, saying that Muslims should avoid suspicion and espionage, and that checking someone else’s phone falls into this category.

“Islam has already deprived such misconducts even before human ordinances came into being, religious instructions precede human laws,” Dr. Mashael told Emirates 24/7. 

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