Good Building, Not Fine Decorations

As mentioned, the masjid of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not have all of those fancy decorations. So what is the ruling on those decorations to start with? The scholars say that tashyīd is allowed while zakhrafah and naqsh are not. Tashyīd means having good building material, good building for the masjid itself. So the masjid of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was made out of mud bricks, but later on it was built from stone, with some pillars in it — that is allowed. Having a roof made out of wood in one of the expanses of Masjid al-Nabawī was allowed too, because these things happened during the time of al-Khulafāʾ al-Rāshidūn. But over the decoration of masjids the scholars have a difference of opinion: some say it is ḥarām and some say it is makrūh. Even those who say it is makrūh say that if somebody designates money to be used as a waqf, a trust, for a masjid, it is ḥarām to use that money to decorate the masjid — it needs to go into the building of the masjid.

Abū al-Dardāʾ (may Allah be pleased with him), for example, says: idhā zakhraftum maṣāḥifakum wa-zawwaqtum masājidakum fa-al-damāru ʿalaykum — if you decorate your copies of the Qurʾān and you decorate your masjids, then destruction is upon you — because that is a sign of preferring symbols over substance. Masjid al-Nabawī was simple, mud bricks, but the best men of this Ummah graduated from Masjid al-Nabawī, and today there are huge, magnificent buildings. But what are the results? They merely show the sophisticated architecture and all of the money that was thrown into those huge buildings. That is about it.