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What is the reason for the prohibition of playing with dice? Is what is meant by it the well-known dice? And is every game that involves dice prohibited?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Dice, or "al-zahr" (often referring to the cube thrown in backgammon), is a cube used in board games. There are hadiths that prohibit playing with it, including the Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him) saying: "Whoever plays with dice has disobeyed Allah and His Messenger," and his saying: "Whoever plays with Nardashir [a Persian name for backgammon/dice] is as if he has dipped his hand in the flesh and blood of a pig." The reason for the prohibition is that it distracts from the remembrance of Allah. It is a form of maysir (gambling) that can lead to actual gambling, false oaths, and neglecting prayers. It relies on chance, similar to divination arrows (azlam). Any game that uses these cubes is considered to be a game of dice.

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

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