al-Ahadith al-Warida fi al-Laib wa al-Riyada
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al-Ahadith al-Warida fi al-Laib wa al-Riyada (The Hadiths Regarding Play and Sports) is a hadith and juristic study by Salih bin Furayh al-Bahlal, examining prophetic traditions and Islamic legal rulings concerning games, recreation, and athletic practices.
Background and Scope
The work was originally prepared as a doctoral dissertation in the Department of Culture (Hadith track) at King Saud University. Its stated purpose was to provide a comprehensive thematic compilation of prophetic hadiths related to recreational games and sports, to evaluate their authenticity, and to derive their legal rulings.
The author gathered 158 elevated (marfu') hadiths attributed to the Prophet ﷺ, of which 136 fall outside Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, including 40 reports scrutinized for hidden defects ('ilal). From these narrations, the book examines more than one hundred juristic issues, including thirty contemporary legal questions.
Structure
The book comprises an introduction, a preliminary chapter (tamhid), two main parts (abwab), and a conclusion:
- Preliminary Chapter: Defines play and sports, and examines the general Islamic legal status of play.
- Part One (Hadiths on Play): Divided into two chapters:
- Games involving inanimate objects: Nine sections discussing play with dirt/sand, swings, wool toys, dolls/figurines (al-banat), hobbyhorses (al-kurraj), pebble-throwing (al-khadhf), backgammon (al-nard), chess (al-shatranj), and the pre-Islamic bone-tossing game ('azm waddah).
- Games involving animals: Four sections addressing pigeon racing and play with pigeons (with and without financial stakes), play with the nughar bird, inciting fights between beasts (al-tahrish bayn al-baha'im), and playing with dogs.
- Part Two (Hadiths on Sports): Divided into eight chapters covering specific athletic activities: archery and shooting (al-ramy), spear play (al-la'ib bi-l-hirab), horse riding, camel riding, foot racing and walking, wrestling (al-musara'a), swimming (al-sibaha), and stone lifting (raf' al-hajar).
Methodology and Findings
The author employed an inductive, deductive, and comparative approach: gathering hadiths from across hadith collections, providing full source citation (takhrij), evaluating their chains of transmission, clarifying obscure vocabulary (gharib al-hadith), and analyzing their fiqh implications.
The conclusion summarizes several core findings:
- The default legal ruling on sports and games is permissibility (al-ibaha), provided they do not involve or lead to prohibited acts.
- Activities with established (thabit) prophetic reports include foot races, wrestling, archery, pebble-throwing, backgammon, spear play, swings, wool toys, dolls, horse and camel riding, and playing with the nughar bird. Reports concerning wrestling for a fee, 'azm waddah, chess, stone lifting, swimming, playing with dirt, hobbyhorses, dogs, animal fighting, and pigeons are unestablished in prophetic hadith.
- Sports and games are categorized juristically into three types: beneficial activities aiding physical fitness or military readiness (such as archery, riding, wrestling, swimming, spear play, and stone lifting, along with girls' play with dolls for maternal upbringing); neutral pastimes with neither inherent harm nor military benefit (such as children's swings and toy play, to which modern sports like football, basketball, and volleyball are analogized); and prohibited or harmful pursuits.
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