'A cause for hatred and enmity': Chess is forbidden under Islam, rules Saudi Arabia grand mufti

Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti has ruled that chess is forbidden in Islam, saying it encourages gambling and is a waste of time.

Sheikh Abdullah al-Sheikh was responding to a question on a television show in which he issued fatwas to viewers who sent in queries on everyday religious matters.

He said chess was “included under gambling” and was “a waste of time and money and a cause for hatred and enmity between players”.

Al-Sheikh justified the ruling by referring to the verse in the Qur’an banning “intoxicants, gambling, idolatry and divination”.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s supreme Shia religious authority, has previously issued rulings forbidding chess.

After the 1979 Islamic revolution, playing chess was banned in public in Iran and declared as haram, forbidden, by senior clerics because it was associated with gambling. But in 1988, Iran’s then supreme leader, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, lifted the ban and said it was permissible as long as it was not used for gambling. Iran now has an active confederation for playing chess and sends players to international games.