The exploitation of writing books for educational purposes at whatever level is strictly forbidden. Once a book has been printed and published, nobody has the right to reserve the publishing and printing rights, including the author. However, if they were ideas he had, which were not yet printed or published, the owner has the right to be paid for transferring these ideas to the public as he paid for teaching.

The evidence for it is the permissibility of taking a fee for teaching and the permission of knowledge for people. As for the permissibility of taking a fee for education, it is confirmed from the words of the Messenger (pbuh) :

.» إِنَّ أَحَقَّ مَا أَخَذْتُمْ عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا كِتَابُ اللهِ «.

“You are most entitled to take wages for Allah (swt)'s Book” (reported by Al-Bukhari from Ibn ‘Abbas), and so by greater reasoning a fee can be taken for teaching anything else; additionally it is confirmed from the fact that the Messenger (pbuh) allowed the prisoners from the battle of Badr to each teach ten Muslims as their ransom, which is making a payment for education. Authoring is the writing of knowledge, or in other words, the giving of knowledge through writing and so it is like imparting it verbally. Knowledge can be passed to people verbally or in a written form and in both circumstances it is permitted to take a fee for it. However, if the teacher imparts something verbally or through writing, the knowledge that the learner took becomes possessed by him, and so he has the right to impart that knowledge to anyone else whether verbally or through writing, and he has the right to take a fee for it. The prisoners from Badr had no right over those who learnt reading and writing from them other than their fee, and those who learnt from them could teach others reading and writing for a fee without the permission of their teachers, and without their teachers having any right.