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Is earning money from electronic games considered permissible, even though the developing companies prohibit selling accounts to other players?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The Mufti answers the questioner according to their query, and the Mufti, like a judge, rules based on what he hears. The fatwas issued by the website regarding games and trading them were based on what the questioners mentioned. The issue of the game-owning company prohibiting the sale of an account within it involves a detailed explanation, depending on whether the company sold the account and stipulated its non-resale, or if it did not sell it but merely enabled the player to play, thus permitting them to utilize it. The difference between owning usufruct and merely owning the right to benefit is: granting the right to benefit (tamleek al-intifaa') means that only the individual themselves can directly use it, whereas owning usufruct (tamleek al-manfaa') is more general and comprehensive, allowing the individual to use it themselves and enable others to benefit from it, with or without compensation. Therefore, accounts in those games are considered a form of usufruct (manaafi'), and selling them is a form of ijarah (leasing/renting).

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

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