the works of Satan, about which Allah the Exalted has said, “Satan only wants to sow enmity and hatred among you through wine and gambling, and to turn you away from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. Will you not then desist?” (al-Māʾidah 5:91). O Allah, grant the Muslims clear understanding of their religion.

• Resolution of the Islamic Fiqh Council on the question of the lottery:

Praise belongs to Allah alone, and blessings and peace be upon the one after whom there is no prophet, our master and Prophet Muḥammad, and upon his family and Companions. To proceed:

The Islamic Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League, in its fourteenth session convened in Makkah al-Mukarramah, which began on Saturday, 20 Shaʿbān 1415 AH / 21 January 1995 CE, examined the subject of the lottery. In statutory law it is defined as “a game in which a number of people each pay a small sum in the hope of winning the ‘share,’ a large amount of money or some other prize that is placed in a draw. Every participant receives a number; the numbers are collected in one place, and by chance one or more numbers are drawn. Whoever’s number is drawn wins the share.”

On the basis of this definition, the lottery constitutes gambling, for each participant either wins the entire stake or loses what he has paid. This is the precise hallmark of the prohibited game of chance.

The device adopted in some legal systems to permit lotteries—namely, allocating part of the proceeds to charitable purposes—is rejected by Islamic jurisprudence, for gambling is forbidden regardless of the motive behind it. In the jāhilīyah form of maysir the winner would distribute his winnings among the poor, and this was the benefit of maysir to which the Quran referred; yet it was still prohibited because its sin is greater than its benefit: “They ask you about wine and gambling. Say: In them is great sin and [some] benefit for people, but their sin is greater than their benefit” (al-Baqarah 2:219). Thereafter the Almighty revealed His word