The Ruling on Competitions and Prizes in Newspapers and Media

Question:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. He says: Recently, competitions, prizes, and lotteries have become widespread in newspapers, magazines, and media outlets. The question is: What is the criterion for these competitions? What is the ruling on participating in them? Are they always considered gambling?

Answer:
It is stated in an authentic hadith that This is delving into wealth. These prizes are for trivial things that have no value and no benefit, or they are for advertising. Merchants and companies do this for advertising purposes. Their greed has led them to run these advertisements to attract customers. So customers rush to buy these items in order to get the prize, even if they may not have any desire for the goods, but they will get a prize worth more than the price they pay. So they rush to buy the goods and go to these shops. This is consuming wealth unjustly.
They may also use lotteries; they enter their name in the draw and it is drawn. If their name appears, they take the prize. All of this is falsehood, uncertainty (gharar), deception, and consuming wealth unjustly. So it is gambling (maysir). This is what gambling is.
Gambling (maysir) is betting that involves money. Gambling is betting where money is at stake, because wealth is respected and it is not permissible to waste it in this manner. Also, this causes harm to the people of the market and other merchants who do not run such prizes, and to companies that do not offer these prizes, because customers turn away from them. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade intercepting travelers to protect the rights of the people of the market. He forbade the sale of the present by the absent for the sake of the rights of the people of the market, so that they benefit from the imported goods, and so that no one monopolizes them, or takes them and monopolizes the customers, turning them away from others. All people seek their livelihood, so do not wrong them by attracting customers to yourself to their exclusion, leaving them aside. All these are precautions regarding these prizes. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) restricted taking prizes in competitions to three things, saying: "There is no racing except with the arrow, the hoof, or the hoof of a camel." The arrow is archery, the hoof is riding camels (racing camels), and the hoof is riding horses (racing horses) to learn horsemanship. Because learning archery, learning horsemanship, and learning to ride camels is training for jihad in the path of Allah the Exalted and Mighty, because these are the mounts of jihad and the weapons of jihad, and training in them is required, and taking prizes for them is prescribed.
As for anything other than these three, it is not permissible. Some scholars, such as Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him), have excepted taking prizes for scholarly questions, legal questions, because they are attached to jihad in the path of Allah, because learning knowledge is part of jihad in the path of Allah. So it is permissible to take prizes for fiqh questions and grammar questions, because this is learning knowledge, and it is part of jihad in the path of Allah, so it falls under these three. And anything other than that is not permissible, and it is consuming wealth unjustly, and it is riba (usury or interest), and it is gambling (maysir), and it is gambling (qimar). Is it not permissible?
Fatwas have been issued by the Council of Senior Scholars and by the Permanent Committee regarding these matters, and they have been printed and distributed. But these people do not reason and do not pay attention to the rulings of the Shari'ah; rather, they follow their desires or imitate the West and the disbelievers, and they do not care about the rulings of the Shari'ah. We ask Allah for safety.