Gambling Salafi
The Salafi movement, also called the Salafist movement, Salafiya and Salafism, is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam that developed in Al-Azhar University in Egypt in the late 19th century as a response to Western European imperialism. Gambling Salafi players safe. They respect gambling rules and age restrictions, offering an excellent real money gaming experience in a secure environment dedicated to players' welfare and security online.
By Mufti Muhammad Shafi’ Uthmani (rahmatullahi alayh)
They ask you about wine and maisir (gambling). Say, “In both there is great sin, and some benefits for people. And their sin is greater than their benefit.[Surah al-Baqarah 2:219]
Grambling Salaries
The word, maisir is an infinitive and lexically means ‘to distribute’. One who distributes is called yasir. During the days of Jahiliyyah, several types of games of chance were common in Arabia. In one of such games, they used to slaughter a camel following which they would gamble while distributing shares from the meat. Some used to get more than one share while others remained deprived of even one. The one who thus remained deprived had to pay for the whole camel. The meat was, of course, distributed among the poor; the gamblers did not use it themselves.
The catch in this particular game of chance was that it benefited the poor while, at the same time, it demonstrated the philanthropy of the gamblers. That is why this game was considered a matter of pride by them. Anyone who would not participate in it was chided as miserly and wretched.
It is because of the relevance of distribution that Qimar is given the name of Maisir. All Companions, and Successors to them, hold the unanimous view that the word, Maisir includes all forms of Qimar or gambling and that all of them are haraam or unlawful. Ibn Kathir in his Tafsir and al-Jassas in Ahkam al-Qur’an report that the blessed Companions ‘Abdullah Ibn ‘Abbas, Ibn ‘Umar, Qatadah, Mu’awiyah ibn Salih, ‘Ata and Ta’wus said: “Qimar (of all kinds) is Maisir – even the games of children with dices and walnuts.
Sayyidina Ibn ‘Abbas (radhiyallahu anhu) said: Mukhatarah (to put something on stake) falls under Qimar (Jassas). Ibn Sirin said: ‘That which involves stakes is included in Maisir’ [Ruh al-Bayan].
Mukhatarah or ‘stake’ is a deal which revolves between profit and loss, that is, there may be a chance that one gets a lot, and also, that one gets nothing. This is very much like what we find in all sorts of modern lotteries. All these types are included under Qimar and Maisir or gambling, are haraam. Therefore, Maisir or Qimar or gambling has been defined as a deal in which the act of making a person the owner of something of value depends on a contingency the two sides of which are equal, and consequently, there are two equal possibilities of taking total profit or absorbing total loss [Shami, Kitab al-Khatar wa l’lbahah, volume 5, page 355].
For instance, it is quite possible that the penalty falls on A, and it is also possible that it falls on B.
To sum up, the rule is that all kinds and forms in vogue – in the past or current today or likely to emerge in the future – shall all be called Maisir and Qimar and gambling. Prize-awarding cross-word puzzles (in which the participants are charged a fee) and commercial lotteries, the generally known among whatever other forms they may have, are all included under gambling. However, should there be a prize offered by one side only, stipulating that it will be given to one who performs a certain feat, that would not matter subject to the condition that no fee is taken from that person. The reason is that, in this case, the deal does not hang between benefit and harm, but hangs between benefit and no-benefit.
Therefore, in authentic ahadith, chess and backgammon and their likes have been declared unlawful where money or property is staked in a win or lose situation. Should there be money staked in playing cards, that too will be included under Maisir.
In Sahih Muslim, there is a report from the blessed Companion Buraydah (radhiyallahu anhu) which states that the Holy Prophet (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) said that one who plays backgammon is like one who dyes his hands in the flesh and blood of pork. Sayyidina ‘Ali (radhiyallahu anhu) said that chess is included in Maisir, that is, gambling. Sayyidina ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar (radhiyallahu anhu) said that chess is much worse than backgammon. [Tafsir Ibn Kathir]
During the early days of Islam, gambling was permissible like drinking. When the verses beginning in Surah al-Rum were revealed where the Holy Qur’an foretold that the Byzantines have no doubt lost to their rivals – the Persians, but, after a few years, the Byzantines will prevail once again. When the disbelievers of Makkah denied the prophecy, Sayyidina Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (radhiyallahu anhu) challenged them with a bet, something like Qimar, proposing that should the Byzantines prevail in so many years the disbelievers will have to pay a certain amount. The bet was approved. When this prophecy of the Qur’an actually came to pass, Sayyidina Abu Bakr (radhiyallahu anhu) made sure that he got the waged amount from the disbelievers and brought it to the Holy Prophet (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) who expressed his pleasure with what had happened but asked him to give away the bet-money in charity. This is significant because Allah had kept His Messenger protected from something that was permissible at that time but was going to be made impermissible later on. This is why he always kept aloof from wine and gambling, and there were particular ones among the noble Companions who also remained protected against these. It appears in a narration that the angel Jibrail (alayhissalaam) told the Holy Prophet (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) that Allah Almighty likes four character-traits in Ja’far al-Tayyar (radhiyallahu anhu). He asked Sayyidina Ja’far al-Tayyar as to what these four traits were. He said, ‘Till now, I have never talked about these before anyone. Now that Allah Almighty has told you about them, I submit and relate these four to you. I saw that wine ruins reason, so I never went near it. I saw that idols cause no benefit or harm to anyone, so I never indulged in idol-worship even during the days of Jahiliyyah. Since I have an acute sense of honour concerning my wife and daughters, so I never committed adultery. Then, I realized that lying is unbridled meanness, and a terrible disgrace, so I never told a lie even in Jahiliyyah’. [Ruh al-Bayan]
Social ill-effects of Gambling
The Holy Qur’an has said the same thing about Qimar or gambling as it has said about wine, that is, in it, there are some benefits as well, but the harm it brings is greater than its benefits. Everyone knows this sort of benefit can make a pauper an overnight millionaire, but there are very few people who know how evil the practice is economically, socially and spiritually.
In gambling, speaking briefly, the gain of one person is dependent upon the loss of the other. The total gain of the winner is an outcome of the total loss of the loser because this transaction does not increase the (national) wealth or production. The amount of wealth remains as it was. What happens through this game of chance is that one is sucked dry of his wealth which then reaches the other, therefore, Qimar is a blanket undoing of a people, and the death of human morality. Isn’t it that man, who should be an agent of public good, a model of sympathy and sacrifice, stoops to the level of a beast while gambling, and starts seeing his life in the death of his brother, and finding delight in his distress, and searching for gain in his loss, and goes about harnessing all his abilities to promote his selfishness? Contrary to this are the permissible forms of transactions in trade where parties buy and sell releasing profits for both. Then, wealth circulates and increases through exchange of commercial commodities and the buyer and seller both find it beneficial.
To begin with, gambling is harmful because the addicted gambler comes to be deprived of the very habit of earning his livelihood, because he always keeps dreaming that he will simply sit and grab what belongs to the other person in no time through a bet, specially so as it involves no hard work. Some scholars have said that gambling has been called Maisir (as derived from the word ‘yusr’ meaning ‘easiness’) because one can easily take possession of what belongs to the other through it. Even if gambling deals revolve around a small number of people such as two or four, their harmful effects mentioned above show up very clearly. But, here we are in this modern age, called ‘the age of progress’ by those handicapped by superficial vision and lack of insight into its aftermath, where we see wine of all sorts given new names and labels, where ever-new kinds of interest and ever-innovative corporate methods to promote it have been invented, commandeered and given the safe name of ‘banking’; so it is with gambling where thousands of dubious forms have found currency. Some of these are so highly collective that the amount of contribution from a whole nation keeps adding up bit by bit, and in case there is a loss, that gets spread out over everybody and thus does not become conspicuous. When an amount from this total ‘take’ reaches the hands of one person, his gain appears to be prominent, therefore, people tend to look at his personal gain but pay no heed to the collective loss of their nation or country. Consequently, they are trapped into believing that these new kinds may as well be valld, although present here are all those harmful effects which are found in gambling confined to a small group of two or four people. Looked at from another angle, the harm brought by this large-scale gambling is much worse than that released by the older form of gambling, for its evil effects are far-reaching and spell out the ruin of a whole nation. As evident, the natural result of this practice will be that wealth belonging to the common people of the community will go on decreasing while the capital of some capitalists will go on increasing further. Inevitably then, the entire wealth of the nation will shrink and come to be concentrated into the hands of a limited number of individuals and a limited number of families. This can be witnessed everyday in stock markets and in other forms of Qimar. Now, Islamic economic strategy has an important principle of its own. It declares that every deal which siphons the wealth of a whole community out into the coffers of a few capitalists is haraam, unlawful and forbidden. It means that the principle of distributing spoils ‘of war among different segments of the society given by the Holy Qur’an aims to make sure that wealth does not shrink and concentrate in the hands of a few capitalists.
Gambling, like wine, becomes the cause of mutual disputes reaching the limits of hatred and animosity, so fatal in a civilized society. To quote once again, the Holy Qur’an mentions the evil of gambling in the following words:
The Satan only wants hostility and hatred to come to stay between you through wine and gambling, and to prevent you from remembering Allah and from the Salah. [Qur’an 5:92]
The effect of gambling, like that of wine, is that one gets recklessly involved in it, becoming unable to attend to the remembrance of Allah, and the prayer. Perhaps, this is why the Holy Qur’an has elected to mention wine and gambling side by side in an identical manner since Qimar or gambling has an intoxicating pull of its own which makes one ignore the concern of what is good or bad for him.
Gambling Salary
As partly mentioned earlier, the basic evil in gambling is that one can falsely devour what belongs to others through this method without any reasonable compensation or brotherly consideration. This is what the Holy Qur’an prohibits in the following words: “And do not eat up each other’s property by false means” [Qur’an 2:188].
The destroyer of many a home, the ill effects of gambling do not remain restricted to the gambler alone. They affect his whole family an become contagious to a much larger social circle because people may have entered into transactions, contracts and ‘loan deals with him which will hurt all concerned in the event of his becoming insolvent.
Finally, in the background of rising social addiction to various Qimar forms, it is useful to keep in view that this evil distorts one’s natural attitude to work and rivets it on imagined gains. Rather than concentrate on his physical or mental skills to increase his earnings steadily, one starts getting fixed on finding ways and means to usurp the earnings of others.
That is why the Holy Qur’an has said that the evils of wine and gambling are greater than their benefits.
Also Read:The Shari’i Prohibition on Playing Chess