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What is the ruling on playing permissible games on a website that contains impermissible games, knowing that this will increase the website's popularity?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Summary of the answers:

Firstly: Among games, some are permissible and some are forbidden. A Muslim is responsible for their time and youth. An hour can be used for acts of obedience or wasted. Attaining high religious stations requires struggle and racing to do good deeds, especially in youth, for memorizing the Quran and seeking knowledge. Ibn Taymiyyah advised Ibn al-Qayyim to abandon some permissible things because they might contradict higher ranks, especially if they were a barrier between the lawful and the unlawful. Nevertheless, this does not prevent playing occasionally for recreation, while being cautious not to waste time on what is not beneficial.

Secondly: There is no harm in playing permissible games on a website that includes both permissible and forbidden content, although it is preferable to deal with a site free of forbidden things, for fear of falling into the forbidden, and because entering the site increases its popularity. Entering it is not considered forbidden assistance, because it is not intended or direct. Assisting in disobedience is forbidden if it is intended or direct.

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

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