❓ Question: WhatsApp and similar platforms offer the facility that if a message is sent to someone by mistake, or is sent temporarily, there is an option to delete it later. Some people use certain tools to view deleted messages. Is it permissible to do so?
✍🏻 Answer: All praise is due to Allāh alone, and peace and blessings be upon the one after whom there is no Prophet!
Recovering deleted items, or using means and methods that allow you to see/hear things of others that they do not wish to show/tell anyone, is absolutely impermissible. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) said: “Whoever listens to the conversation of a people while they dislike it or flee from him, molten lead will be poured into his ears on the Day of Resurrection.” [Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (7042)]
When a person sends a message and then deletes it, it means that they do not want anyone else to hear or see it. If now someone sees, hears, or reads it, it falls under this category. Those who do such things should fear the Day of Judgement. This also applies to ‘tatabbu’i ‘awrāt’ (seeking out the faults of others), for which severe warnings are found separately in the Qurān and Sunnah. Using such apps/software/tools is therefore not permissible, as they become a means for this evil and sin.
Due to modern means and resources, such sins have become very common. Hacking others’ mobile phones, computers, websites, hard disks, etc., stealing hidden information and numbers, etc. and similarly, when people give their mobile phones, memory cards, laptops, etc., for repairs, after deleting everything from them; or selling them, but then the store owner or buyer recovers their personal data – all of these are major sins and unlawful. May Allāh guide us all.
And the last of our supplications is that all praise belongs to Allāh – Lord of all the worlds.
📚 Source: Fatāwā Lajnā al-‘Ulamā’ (1/695-696), new edition.
Translated by ‘Imrān (Germany)