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What is the religious ruling on Umrah groups on Facebook that collect 20 pounds monthly from members and conduct a random draw to select girls for Umrah? Is this considered cooperation in righteousness and piety, or is it gambling?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If the group system is like employee associations, where each participant pays an amount and a draw is held to give the winning participants the collected amount to perform 'Umrah, and this is repeated monthly to include all participants, with the lottery being merely for order, then it is permissible. However, if the goal is for each person to pay an amount and a draw is held to select only one or more winners, without all participants getting their turn, then this falls under prohibited gambling, due to Allah's saying: "O you who have believed, indeed, intoxicants, gambling, [sacrificing on] stone altars [to other than Allah], and divining arrows are but defilement from the work of Satan, so avoid it that you may be successful."

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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