Playing chess or cards: what is the reasoning behind its impermissibility?

There have been some posts on this net concerning the impermissibility of playing chess or cards. I don’t have any problems with these rulings and have heard them before but the reasoning given kind of troubled me. It was basically said that (please correct if I am wrong) they are haram since they are waste of time. It seems as though many things we commonly do can be considered a waste of times but not necessarily haram such as watching a sports match, browsing the internet, sleeping. So would these be activities be haram as well then or so there some other specific reason or proof for cards and chess being impermissible. For example on the Shafii net concerning chess it says: As Imam Nawawi mentions in his Minhaj al-Talibin, playing chess is detestable (makruh) (al-Siraj al-Wahhaj, 580 (Dar al-Kutub al-`Ilmiyyah)), meaning that you are not punished for doing it and you are rewarded for avoiding it. Concerning cards it says So the questioner should look at the basis and starting point of playing cards. If it is based on conjecture and guessing, it is haram, if not, then it isn't...I don’t ask this question to reject the rulings given in any way but rather to understand the reasoning behind it better.

Wa alaikum salaam wa rahmatullah,

The basis of the prohibition is the saying of Allah’s Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him:

“Whosoever plays with backgammon is as though he dipped his hands in the flesh and blood of a swine”. (Sahih Muslim, No. 2260).

If one looks towards the relevant sayings of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), one may classify games into three categories:

Those that have been clearly and explicitly prohibited, such as backgammon in the above quoted Hadith. Those that have been clearly permitted or encouraged, such as archery. Games that have no clear mention in the primary texts of Hadith.

The scholars mention that this third category of games will be assessed based on how engrossed individuals become when engaged in them. If it is to the point where normally one neglects one’s worldly and other worldly obligations, particularly the prayer, the ruling of category 1 will apply and the game will be deemed prohibitively disliked. In such cases the ruling will be that of general impermissibility based on the inevitable nature of the game. Therefore, even when one takes all precautions to not neglect religious and other worldly obligations, the game will still be impermissible to play, since the established Fiqhi principle states “the inevitable is considered actual”.

If engrossment is not to this degree (and the game has not been prohibited by primary text), then subject to strict conditions, playing it would be permissible, such as many sports which are essentially permissible e.g. hockey and football.

As for chess, according to the Hanafi scholars it falls under the first category based on the few narrations reported concerning its prohibition.

[Ahkam al-Quran, Mufti Mohammad Shafi]

And Allah alone gives success.

Yusuf Mullan