What then of the one who engages in the other kinds of gambling?! If the person who plays nard (backgammon) is likened to someone who plunges his hand into the flesh and blood of a swine (1), what, then, of the chess-player?! (2) Is this not simply a case of warning by reference to the lesser so that one may beware of the greater?

And if the one who plays nard is deemed disobedient to Allah and His Messenger, even though the harm of nard is comparatively light, how can the very label (3) of disobedience to Allah Most High and to His Messenger be removed from the devotee of chess, when its harm is so grave: it diverts from what Allah and His Messenger love, seizes the player’s thoughts, occupies his heart and limbs, wastes his lifetime, and when a small taste of it calls to excess just as a little wine invites more, while people’s craving for the stakes exceeds even their desire to play without them?!

If there were no corruption in playing it at all other than (4) that it is a near and ready path to consuming unlawful wealth through gambling, its prohibition would still be obligatory in the Sacred Law. How much more, then, when the evils that arise from merely playing it are themselves enough to necessitate its prohibition! And how could anyone imagine that the Sharia would permit something that distracts the heart and preoccupies it to the utmost—