Is Chess Haram? What Islamic Scholars Say

The short answer: it depends who you ask

There is no single Islamic ruling on chess. It is one of the questions on which respected scholars have disagreed for over a thousand years.

The Qur’an does not mention chess. Scholars who forbid it reason from a hadith about a different game, backgammon; from statements of some of the Prophet’s Companions; and from general rules against gambling and wasting time. Scholars who allow it reply that none of those texts names chess, and that the game is not inherently gambling.

So in practice, the answer a Muslim gets depends largely on which school of law (madhhab) or which scholar they follow. Below is a fair summary of each position and what it rests on.

The evidence scholars cite

1. The hadith about nard (backgammon)

In Sahih Muslim 2260, the Prophet ﷺ is reported to have said that whoever plays nardashir, a game similar to backgammon, is like someone who dips his hand in the flesh and blood of swine. The hadith is graded authentic. It does not mention chess, but many scholars apply it to chess by analogy, since both are board games of the same era and region.

2. Reports from the Companions

Several Companions are reported to have disapproved of chess. ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib is reported to have passed people playing it and asked, “What are these statues to which you are devoted?” (Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah). He is also reported to have called chess “the gambling of the non-Arabs”, and Abu Musa al-Ash‘ari to have said that only a sinner plays it (Mishkat al-Masabih 4510–4512). Scholars debate how strong some of these chains of narration are. Reports attributing statements about chess directly to the Prophet ﷺ are widely regarded as unreliable; the 16th-century scholar Ibn Hajar al-Haytami wrote that nothing from the Prophet about chess has been established (quoted by ChessBase).

3. Gambling and wasting time

The Qur’an forbids gambling (maysir) in verse 5:90. Chess was historically used for betting, and scholars such as the Saudi Grand Mufti in 2016 used that verse to argue against it. Others, especially in the Hanafi school, call chess lahw, a pointless diversion, citing a hadith that every such diversion is futile except a few named activities (Qibla, Hanafi answer).

4. The case for permission

Scholars who allow chess point to the principle that things are permissible unless a text forbids them, and to reports that some early Muslims, including Companions and Successors, played or allowed it. Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta lists Abu Hurayrah, Sa‘id ibn Jubayr, Muhammad ibn Sirin, al-Hasan al-Basri and others among those reported to have allowed it (fatwa, 2026). They also argue that chess is a game of skill and thinking, unlike games of chance.

What each school and authority says

• Hanafi school

  Prohibitively disliked (makruh tahrimi)

  The relied-upon Hanafi position, recorded by Ibn Abidin; some Hanafi fatwa bodies, such as Darul Uloom Deoband, treat it as haram in all cases. Imam Abu Yusuf is reported to have allowed it under strict conditions.

  Shaykh Faraz Rabbani · Darul Uloom Deoband

• Maliki school

  Haram (forbidden)

  Imam Malik is reported to have condemned chess; Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta lists the Maliki school as holding it forbidden, with a minority view that it is disliked.

  Dar al-Ifta (Egypt)

• Shafi‘i school

  Disliked (makruh), not forbidden, with conditions

  Imam al-Shafi‘i is reported to have played chess; Imam Nawawi records it as makruh. It becomes haram if it involves betting or makes a person miss prayers or other duties.

  Shafi‘i answer citing Nawawi · IslamQA

• Hanbali school

  Haram (forbidden)

  Imam Ahmad held it sinful; Ibn Taymiyya held that it is haram by consensus when it distracts from obligations, and the majority view forbids it even when it does not.

  IslamQA

• Dar al-Ifta of Egypt (fatwa, March 2026)

  Permissible, with conditions

  Concludes that the stronger view is that chess is permissible if there is no gambling, no neglect of duties and no other prohibited act, noting that no explicit text of the Qur’an or Sunnah names chess.

  Dar al-Ifta fatwa

• Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al ash-Sheikh (2016)

  Forbidden

  Answering a viewer on television, he called chess a form of gambling, a waste of time and money, and a cause of enmity between players. Reports described it as an advisory opinion rather than a law.

  The Guardian

• Ayatollah Khomeini (1988)

  Permissible without betting

  Lifted the ban imposed in Iran after 1979, ruling that chess is permissible if it is not played as a means of gambling.

  The Guardian · WikiShia

• Ayatollah Khamenei and Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi

  Permissible if not seen as a gambling tool

  Hold that if chess is not regarded in common custom as a gambling instrument and is seen as an intellectual sport, playing it without betting is permissible.

  WikiShia

• Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani

  Forbidden, with or without betting

  Considers playing chess haram whether or not money is involved.

  WikiShia

Each position is summarised from the source linked under it. Within every school there are individual scholars who differ from the main view; this table shows the positions most often reported.

The conditions almost everyone agrees on

Even scholars who allow chess attach conditions. If any is broken, they consider the game forbidden:

1. No gambling or betting

   Every view agrees that chess played for a stake is gambling and forbidden.

2. No missed prayers or duties

   Scholars who allow chess still forbid it when it delays prayer or makes a person neglect obligations.

3. No bad speech or enmity

   Lying, swearing, arguments and hostility between players are named as reasons it becomes forbidden.

4. Not habitual or excessive

   Many who permit it warn against playing so much that it takes over a person’s time.

Sources: Dar al-Ifta (Egypt), IslamQA, ChessBase.

The chess the early scholars knew was a different game

The classical rulings were about shatranj, the form of chess that reached the Islamic world from Persia. Its rules were not the same as today’s. Two pieces in particular were much weaker:

Modern-piece squares computed with chess.js 1.4.0; ferz and alfil squares computed from their historical moves (one step diagonally; a two-square diagonal jump). Shown with modern piece icons for clarity.

The modern queen and bishop appeared in Europe in the late 15th century, centuries after the classical rulings. Some modern scholars, especially among Shia jurists, have argued that a ruling tied to a game’s use for gambling can change when the game itself and the way people use it change; others hold that the texts apply to chess in any form. For more on how the game developed, see who invented chess.

Chess in Muslim countries today

In practice chess is widely played across the Muslim world. Iran, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Turkey and many other Muslim-majority countries have national federations and produce grandmasters. Two episodes stand out:

• Iran: after the 1979 revolution, public chess was banned as a form of gambling. In 1988 Ayatollah Khomeini lifted the ban, ruling chess permissible if it is not used for gambling (The Guardian).
• Afghanistan: the Taliban banned chess during their first period of rule (1996–2001). In May 2025 their government suspended chess again “until further notice”, saying it is considered a means of gambling under Islamic law (Arab News/AFP; NPR). We found no report of the suspension being lifted as of November 2026.

The 2016 statement by Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti was widely reported as a ban, but it was an answer to a viewer’s question on television and did not have the force of law.

Common practical questions

Is it haram to play chess online or against a computer?

Scholars apply the same reasoning: the questions are about time, prayer and money, not the screen. Those who forbid chess generally forbid it online too; those who allow it apply the same conditions.

What about chess pieces as images?

‘Ali’s reported question about “statues” has led some scholars to object to carved figures. Many medieval sets from the Islamic world used abstract shapes instead: one of the oldest surviving near-complete sets, a 12th-century set from Nishapur in Iran, has a throne-like king and a pawn shaped like a small dome (Metropolitan Museum of Art). The museum notes that abstract pieces likely replaced figural ones to get around early prohibitions (Met).

What about tournaments with prizes?

Many scholars treat a prize pool funded by players’ entry fees as a form of gambling, and distinguish it from prizes paid by a sponsor. This is a detailed question where it is worth asking a scholar directly.

FAQ

Sources and how we checked

• Hadith: Sahih Muslim 2260; Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah; Mishkat al-Masabih 4510–4512.
• Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah, fatwa on playing chess (30 March 2026), including its summary of the four schools.
• Sunni answers: IslamQA 14095 (Hanbali/Salafi, citing Ibn Taymiyya and al-Dhahabi); Shaykh Faraz Rabbani and Qibla (Hanafi); Darul Uloom Deoband (Hanafi); Shafi‘i answer citing Nawawi.
• Shia: WikiShia, “Chess” (Khomeini, Khamenei, Makarem Shirazi, Sistani).
• News: The Guardian (2016); Arab News/AFP and NPR (2025); ChessBase (2016).
• This page was not reviewed by a qualified scholar of Islamic jurisprudence. It summarises published positions and does not give a ruling.