Canada Journal – News of the World Articles and videos to bring you the biggest Canadian news stories from across the country every day
Chess has been ruled as forbidden in Islam by a top scholar in Saudi Arabia who claimed the game caused “hatred” between players.
Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Sheikh declared chess is forbidden in Islam when he was asked about the game on a television show.
The top religious official said chess was “included under gambling” and was “a waste of time and money and a cause for hatred and enmity between players.” the Guardian reports. A verse in the Qur’an bans “intoxicants, gambling, idolatry and divination.”
Al Sheikh did not deliver his response to the question as a formal decree, though British chess grandmaster Nigel Short told the BBC the pronouncement means members of the Saudi Chess Associations could be imperiled for playing the game. “I don’t consider chess to be a threat to society. It’s not something that is so depraved as to corrupt morals,” Short said.
Chess had previously been forbidden in Iran, though Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini lifted the ban about a decade later.
Agencies/Canadajournal
Chess causes hatred!!! Coming from one of the most dangerous terrorist countries in the world. Just what do they think AK47’s and bombs do? You bloody Muslim freak shows should be taken out back and have a bullet put in your medieval heads.
Take a long hearty laugh and realize just how far behind Muslims are in their thinking, when something as simple as a stepping stone like Chess is forbidden.