The first category comprises activities whose harm decisively outweighs any benefit, such as nard and chess (1). The Lawgiver therefore prohibits them outright, for their harm surpasses their utility and is akin to the harm of intoxication. In the same vein, Allah has coupled wine and gambling under one ruling, made them the companions of idols and divining arrows, declared them all to be defilement and the handiwork of Satan, commanded that they be avoided, linked success to shunning them, informed us that they bar one from His remembrance and from prayer, and threatened those who refuse to desist.

It is self-evident that once a drinker becomes intoxicated he is kept from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer, and that enmity and hatred are sown through it.

Likewise, contests that provide sheer amusement with no benefit—such as nard, chess, and the like—(2) divert one from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer, because the soul is so intensely preoccupied with them and the heart is perpetually (3) absorbed in their calculations.

From this perspective (4) chess is even more engrossing for the heart and more distracting from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. For that reason some scholars have deemed it more strictly forbidden than nard, and they have taken the explicit textual evidence (5) to mean that whoever plays nard is in open disobedience to Allah Most High.