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Fatwa CenterStaging crime scene to study people's reaction
Question
I have a question. Sometimes, people make a staged crime etc. to experiment; to observe people and study the society and benefit from this. Is this considered lying, and is it sinful? Also, is filling in false information when making an account (at a bank) which requires us to be of a certain age or more sinful? What about the accounts?
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
In principle, portrayal of life (role playing) is permissible if it is free from Islamic prohibitions.
Ibn ‘Uthaymeen 
said:
“If these portrayals do not include what is forbidden, then I do not see anything wrong with them. In other words, they do not include portraying of the Prophet nor of the Companions, nor of the Imaams, and there is no lie in it, nor a man playing the role of a woman or vice versa, nor portraying of the disbelievers or dissolute people or hypocrites. If it is giving an example of reality, then it is acceptable. This is not considered among the forbidden matters, as the person does not want to say something as a reality, but he gives an example of a particular situation, and all the people know that this man is not the one who is represented, so as to say: it is a lie; rather, we know that he is so-and-so and not the man who divorced his wife angrily, or beat his children severely, or the like.”
Therefore, there is nothing wrong in portraying crimes if there is a benefit in it and provided there is no Islamic prohibition in it – such as intimidating a Muslim, or spying on him and revealing his defects – like measuring his negative reaction to the crime and then spreading that among the people as is done in prank shows.
As regards deliberately giving wrong information when opening a bank account, then this is a forbidden lie, because it consists of giving false information. As Al-Fayyoomi said in his definition of lying, “It is informing about something contrary to what it is, whether it is intentional or by mistake, and there is a sin in the intentional kind.” [Excerpted from Al-Misbaah Al-Muneer]
Consequently, it is not permissible to open a bank account in the manner which you mentioned.
Allah knows best.
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