The Ruling on Prizes in Sports and Academic Competitions
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah protect you. In some sports competitions, the winning team, or the winning class, or the winning student is given a prize. Is it prescribed to enter into the hadith: "There is no racing except in a bow, a spear, or a horse"?
Answer:
If the competition is in matters of religious knowledge, in matters of religious knowledge such as fiqh, tawhid (the oneness of Allah), the Qur'an, or hadith, then the scholar Ibn al-Qayyim permitted this in his book al-Farasiyyah. He said: Because this falls under jihad in the path of Allah, for learning knowledge is part of jihad in the path of Allah. It is analogized to the three things which are means of jihad: the arrow, the shoe, and the hoof. Learning knowledge is jihad in the path of Allah, so it is permissible to take prizes for it. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah protect you. In some sports competitions, the winning team, or the winning class, or the winning student is given a prize. Is it prescribed to enter into the hadith: "There is no racing except in a bow, a spear, or a horse"?
Answer:
If the competition is in matters of religious knowledge, in matters of religious knowledge such as fiqh, tawhid (the oneness of Allah), the Qur'an, or hadith, then the scholar Ibn al-Qayyim permitted this in his book al-Farasiyyah. He said: Because this falls under jihad in the path of Allah, for learning knowledge is part of jihad in the path of Allah. It is analogized to the three things which are means of jihad: the arrow, the shoe, and the hoof. Learning knowledge is jihad in the path of Allah, so it is permissible to take prizes for it. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، محاضرات في العقيدة والدعوة-02-مفتاح السعادة في الدنيا والآخرة|صالح الفوزان|كبار العلماء — youtube.com (50:12)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.