Every year, as the National Mosque Open Day approaches, we are asked the same set of questions — by mosque committees weighing whether to take part, by members of the public wondering whether they would be welcome, and by Muslims who have heard it argued that opening a masjid to visitors is not permitted. They are fair questions and they deserve careful answers. Here are ours, with the sources.

We have tried to state the restrictive views accurately rather than conveniently. Where the scholars differ, we say so. Where a narration is weak, we say that too — including where it is a narration that would have suited our case.

A note on who this is for. Much of what follows is a conversation among Muslims about Islamic law, and it uses the vocabulary of that conversation. If you are not Muslim and you are reading over our shoulder, you are very welcome to — but please read it as a discussion about our own obligations, never about your worth as a guest. On that, there is nothing to debate. You are welcome.

Detail of blue and white geometric tilework at the Nizamiye Mosque, Midrand
Tilework at the Nizamiye Mosque, Midrand. Photo by Andrew Moore, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Is It Permissible for a Non-Muslim to Enter a Masjid?

In the Hanafi madhhab — the school followed by the great majority of South African Muslims — yes, and this is not a marginal or modern opinion.

The Fatawa al-Hindiyyah states plainly: “There is nothing wrong with non-Muslims entering the Haram of Makkah and all other mosques” (5/346). The al-Mawsu’ah al-Fiqhiyyah al-Kuwaitiyyah records the Hanafi position as permitting it unrestrictedly, to al-Masjid al-Haram and to other mosques alike (20/244).

This has been confirmed for our own context. The Darul Iftaa in Durban, in a fatwa checked and approved by the late Mufti Ebrahim Desai, answered an imam asking precisely this question: “According to the Hanafi Mazhab, it is permissible for non-Muslims to enter the Musjid.” It cites Mufti Mahmood Hasan Gangohi, the grand mufti of India, who attached two conditions — that their entry causes no harm or fitnah to the Muslims, and that their impure state is not established — and Mufti Kifayatullah, who was asked about a joint Muslim and Hindu civic committee meeting in a masjid and answered: “There is no problem. Muslims, Hindus, Christians and non-Muslims are not prohibited from entering the Musjid… If there is one correct objective (unity and establishment of peace), then there is no problem.”

Askimam, Fatwa #21867 · Wifaqul Ulama, “Non-Muslims: Entering Mosques”

What About the Verse That Is Quoted to Say the Masjid Must Be Closed to Others?

The verse is Surah at-Tawbah, 9:28. Mustafa Khattab renders it: “O believers! Indeed, the polytheists are ‘spiritually’ impure, so they should not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year.” His inverted commas around spiritually are doing real work, and we will come to why.

Two things are worth noticing. The first is that the verse names its subject: al-Masjid al-Haram, the Sacred Mosque in Makkah. It does not say “mosques”. Whether the ruling extends to every other mosque is a question of analogy, and that is exactly where the scholars divide.

The second is what the word najas is taken to mean. This is the point on which the verse is most often misread, in both directions. The classical commentators are almost uniform that it is not a statement about anybody’s body or person. Jalalayn glosses it as filth “on account of their inner vileness”. Mawdudi renders it: unclean “in their creeds, morals, deeds and ways, and not in their physical bodies by themselves.” Abu Hanifah understood the prohibition to be directed at the polytheists performing the rites of hajj and tawaf at the sanctuary, rather than at bodily entry as such.

We should be straightforward about the other side of this: a minority of jurists, including reports from Imam Malik, did extend the restriction to all mosques by analogy. That is a serious position held by serious scholars, and a mosque that follows it is within its rights. It is not, however, the position of the school most South African Muslims follow.

What Did the Prophet ﷺ Actually Do?

The clearest and most authentic evidence is the case of Thumamah ibn Uthal. He was captured and brought to Madinah, and — while still an idolater — was tied to one of the pillars of the Prophet’s own masjid for three days. He heard what was said and saw what was done there. He was then released, performed ghusl, returned to the masjid and accepted Islam.

The circumstances were of their time and we are not drawing an analogy between a prisoner of war and a guest at an open day. What matters for our question is the legal category the incident establishes, and how Imam al-Bukhari catalogued it. He placed it under a chapter he himself headed “The entering of a polytheist into the mosque.” The compiler of the most rigorous collection in Islam drew the general ruling from the narration and named it as such.

Sahih al-Bukhari 469 · Sahih al-Bukhari 4372 · Sahih Muslim 1764a

Two further incidents are widely cited — the delegation of Thaqif, lodged in the masjid “so that it might soften their hearts”, and the Christian delegation of Najran, received in the Prophet’s masjid. We use them with a caveat, and we state it rather than hide it. The Thaqif narration (Sunan Abi Dawud 3026) is graded weak by al-Albani, though Hanafi jurists have relied on it. The Najran report reaches us through the sirah literature by way of Ibn Ishaq with a broken chain, and is weak as a hadith — though Ibn al-Qayyim in Zad al-Ma’ad, Ibn Kathir, al-Bayhaqi and Ibn Sa’d all carry it and Ibn al-Qayyim derived rulings from it.

So the honest position is this: Thumamah carries the weight, and it is enough. The other two support it; they do not hold it up.

Muslims Observe Rules About Ritual Purity in the Masjid. How Do Those Apply to a Visitor?

They do not, and that is the answer the jurists themselves give.

Muslims wash before they pray — wudhu, and in certain circumstances a full washing called ghusl. These are obligations attached to the acts of worship a Muslim performs. The rules around them govern Muslims and their prayer. They are not a measure of who is clean enough to walk through a door, and they were never meant to be read that way.

Because those obligations arise from acts of worship a visitor is not performing, they do not transfer to a guest. Hanafi jurists say this plainly: a visitor may enter without being in a state of ritual purity, precisely for that reason (al-Muhit al-Burhani 5/361; Badai’ al-Sanai’ 5/128). The Shafi’i texts arrive at the same place by a different route — with the permission of a Muslim, entry is lawful, and ritual purity is not a condition of it (Tuhfat al-Muhtaj with Sharwani’s gloss, 2/168). These are not modern accommodations. They are centuries old, and they were written down long before anyone thought of an open day.

What is actually asked of a visitor is what any host anywhere would ask: come as you would to someone’s home, dressed modestly, and treat the place as the house of worship it is. That is the whole of it.

One footnote for those who follow the argument into the texts. The single narration most often cited on this question is graded weak by al-Albani where it appears in Sunan Abi Dawud 232. We mention it not to unsettle anything Muslims practise about their own prayer — that rests on much wider grounds — but because a narration should be weighed the same way whoever happens to be quoting it.

What Do the Four Madhhabs Say?

They do not all say the same thing, and we will not pretend otherwise.

School Position on mosques other than al-Masjid al-Haram
Hanafi Permitted. Abu Hanifah and Abu Yusuf permit entry even to al-Masjid al-Haram, reading 9:28 as a bar on the rites rather than on entry. Muhammad ibn al-Hasan requires permission.
Shafi’i Permitted with the permission of a Muslim; that permission is a condition of lawfulness. Inviting non-Muslims in to hear the Qur’an and learn about Islam is held to be recommended.
Maliki Restrictive. At minimum disliked (makruh) other than for necessity; some reports attribute to Imam Malik a prohibition extending to all mosques.
Hanbali Restrictive. The well-known (mashhur) position in Kashshaf al-Qina’ and al-Insaf forbids entry; other Hanbalis permit it with a Muslim’s permission or for necessity.
Summarised from Irsyad al-Fatwa 271, Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah 10494 and Askimam 21867. These sources do not agree with one another in every detail on the Maliki and Hanbali positions.

So: this is a matter on which the schools differ, and a mosque following a restrictive position is entitled to decline. What cannot fairly be said is that opening a masjid to guided visitors is outside the Shari’ah, or that the Muslims who do it have departed from the madhhab. They are acting on the plain ruling of the school the overwhelming majority of South African Muslims follow.

Isn’t the Masjid a Place for Worship Only? Doesn’t This Turn It Into a Museum?

The masjid is a place of worship first, last and always, and nothing about an open day changes that. But the masjid of the Prophet ﷺ was never only a prayer hall. Delegations were received in it. Disputes were heard and settled in it. The wounded were nursed in it after al-Khandaq. Teaching, governance, hospitality and the ordinary business of a community all happened there, around the salaah rather than in place of it.

The principle a serious objector would raise here is a real one, and worth stating well: the masjid is built for the worship of Allah, and an activity that is merely permissible should not be deliberately arranged inside it. We take that seriously. It is why the conditions below exist, why the programme is timed around the congregational salaah rather than through it, and why the purpose has to be ta’reef and da’wah — making Islam known — rather than spectacle. An hour in which the imam explains tawhid, the salaah is demonstrated and every question a visitor has ever had is answered is not an intermission from the masjid’s purpose. It is the masjid doing what a masjid is for.

Is This “Celebrating Heritage Day”?

No. Heritage Day is a public holiday, not a religious festival, and no religious observance of any kind attaches to it. Muslims are not asked to celebrate anything, to take part in any rite, or to mark the day in any way inside the masjid.

The date is chosen for one practical reason: it is the day most South Africans are not at work and are already thinking about the people they live alongside. That is when a mosque’s doors being open is most likely to be noticed and used. The same calculation is made elsewhere — Germany holds its open mosque day on Unity Day, and Britain’s ran this year alongside the national Heritage Open Days.

Doesn’t Da’wah Require Us to Be Uncompromising About Tawhid?

It does, and the open day is built on that premise rather than against it. A visitor who spends an hour in a mosque is told, by the imam, in plain terms, that Muslims worship one God alone, that nothing is associated with Him, that Muhammad ﷺ is His final messenger, and why Muslims hold that to be the most important thing they could tell anyone. Very few South Africans have ever heard this said to them directly by a Muslim. Most of what they know about Islam has been assembled from news footage.

Hospitality is not the opposite of clarity. The Prophet ﷺ received delegations who had come to dispute with him, fed them, housed them, and told them exactly what he had been sent with. Nothing about serving tea requires anyone to soften a single article of belief — and in our experience, nothing makes a plain statement of tawhid land better than the person hearing it having first been treated as a guest.

What About Dress, Mixing, Photography and Crowds?

This is the strongest version of the objection, and it is not really about entry at all — it is about how an event is run. It deserves a practical answer rather than a theological one, because that is what it is.

Every host mosque in this campaign undertakes the following, and any mosque that cannot should not host:

  • The mosque committee decides, and the imam is satisfied. No mosque is pressed to take part.
  • The purpose is ta’reef and da’wah, and the programme is built around that.
  • Visitors are received in modest dress. Scarves are provided at the door for women who need them.
  • Visitors are guided and supervised throughout. Nobody wanders unaccompanied.
  • Men and women are received according to the arrangements the mosque ordinarily makes.
  • The programme is scheduled so that it does not intrude on the congregational salaah.
  • No act of non-Islamic worship takes place in the mosque, and no visitor is invited to join the salaah.
  • Photography is at the host mosque’s discretion and by its rules.

These are not our invention. They are the conditions the permissive fatwas themselves attach — permission of the mosque’s authority, a genuine religious benefit, respectful conduct, modest dress, preservation of the sanctity of the place.

Has Any Ulama Body Supported This?

Yes. The United Ulama Council of South Africa has put its support in writing.

In a letter of 4 July 2019, over the signature of the Secretary General, Moulana Yusuf Patel, UUCSA recorded that it “supports the National Open Day Mosque campaign… and accordingly agrees to partner SAMNET in promoting the campaign”, and undertook to “request all of its affiliate members to promote the National Open Mosque Day within their respective constituencies.”

The letter is specific rather than general: it sets out the five elements of the programme it is supporting — meet and greet, masjid tour, explanation of prayer and ablution, a brief introduction to Islam, and a question and answer session. It grounds the campaign in Surah an-Nahl, 16:125: “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best.” And it closes:

In any multi-faith country, knowledge of self must include knowledge of our neighbours. Ignorance of each other has often been the cause of fear, suspicion and phobia.

Moulana Yusuf Patel, Secretary General, UUCSA, 4 July 2019

The Cape Ulama Board, the Islamic Propagation Centre International, the Imam Development Project and the Ahlus Sunnah Media Network are likewise listed among the campaign’s supporting bodies.

What if Our Mosque Decides Not to Take Part?

Then it should not take part, and no one will think the worse of it. This is a matter on which the madhhabs differ and on which a mosque committee is entitled to follow the more cautious view. We have never asked a mosque to act against its imam’s judgement and we are not asking now.

What we would ask is that the disagreement be kept in proportion. A difference over an hour on a Thursday afternoon is a difference of ijtihad among Muslims, not a boundary of faith.

Has Any of This Worked?

Here is what we can point to.

  • South Africa. Eighteen mosques in 2017. Forty-five by 2019, hosting over two thousand visitors across six provinces. Ten mosques went ahead even in 2020, under lockdown. Around a hundred venues in 2022. Since 2023 the campaign has extended into Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and beyond; in 2025, twenty-seven South African venues were joined by ninety-five across nine other African countries. In one Malawian town, three churches took part.
  • Germany. The Tag der offenen Moschee has run every 3 October since the mid-1990s: over a thousand mosque communities, more than 100,000 visitors a year.
  • Britain. The Muslim Council of Britain’s Visit My Mosque grew from about twenty mosques in 2015 to more than 250 in 2026.
  • Dubai. The Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding has run guided visits to the Jumeirah Mosque since 1998, under the motto “Open Doors. Open Minds.” Qatar: the Fanar Islamic Cultural Centre in Doha does the same year-round.

And there is now measured evidence. A three-wave panel study of 324 German school pupils across six mosques, published in 2023, found that most guided mosque visits significantly reduced prejudice against Islam and Muslims, and that afterwards visitors’ mental picture of Muslims carried more concrete religious content and fewer associations of threat. The researchers are honest that the effect fades over several months — which tells us that one afternoon a year should be a door, not a destination.

Janzen, Diekmann, Tsolak & Salentin, “Do guided mosque tours alleviate the prejudice of non-Muslims against Islam and Muslims?”, Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik (2023)

Sources

Still have a question? Email info@samnet.co.za. If it is a question about the ruling rather than the arrangements, we would rather you put it to your own imam or mufti — and we would be glad to know what they say.

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