What is the ruling on playing bridge?

The questioner : The questioner says: Peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

The Shaykh : And peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings. I have come to love you for the sake of Allah. After that, what is the ruling on playing bridge, which is a card game? My relatives and my cousins come to our house every night,

The questioner : and they smoke shisha and cigarettes and play bridge until morning. Sometimes I sit with them to advise them. Is that permissible for me, knowing that I advise them and do not participate with them except in the speech in which I remind them of Allah?

The Shaykh : I say: I ask Allah the Exalted to love this brother who loves us for the sake of Allah, to love him as we love him for His sake, and to make us all among the beloved of Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He. As for playing bridge, which is a card game,
our scholars (may Allah have mercy on them) have forbidden it and said that it is forbidden because it leads to abandoning many beneficial things. It may lead to abandoning the congregational prayer, and it may prevent a person from rising for the Fajr prayer at its time. So it has many harms. What is fitting for the Muslim is to avoid it. As for shisha and smoking, they are forbidden because they are harmful and involve the squandering of wealth, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade the squandering of wealth. As for your relatives who come to your house, if they come to your house, you have the right to prevent them from what they practice, such as smoking cigarettes or shisha. They have no right to smoke that in the house of a person who does not approve of it being smoked in his house. Rather, they should avoid this.