Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #183 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 22 Sep 2020 › Segment 18 of 29
Is drawing lots or playing the lottery haram in Islam?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith tafsir tafseer exegesis tafasir tafaseer madhab mazhab school of law madhahib mazahib madhaahib al-bukhari imam bukhari sahih al-bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari azan azaan athan adhaan call to prayer imaam imams prayer leader sadaqa sadqa sadaqat sadqah voluntary charity shariat sharee'ah maaliki malikite malikiyyah maliki school shafei shafiite shafi'i school hambali hanbalite hanbali school muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam halaal permitted lawful haraam forbidden makruh makrooh makruh tahrimi makruh tanzihi sunna sunnat prophetic practice dalil daleel adillah adilla proof kufr kafir kaafir kufar kaafirun disbelief iman imaan eemaan eeman shaytan shaitan shaytaan iblis iblees shayateen shayatin devil jahannam jahanam jahannum surah sura soorah surat suwar soora ahl al-sunnah ahl as-sunnah ahlus sunnah ahl al-sunna sunnis salafi salafism wahhabi wahabi wahhabism 'alim aalim ulama ulema ulamaa talaaq triple talaq talak ibadah ibada ibaadah ibadatLottery in the Shari'ah: Ali's judgement on a disputed child
Play from 1:42:38
The video loads from YouTube only when you press play. Click a time in the transcript to seek.
Watch this part
Open on YouTube at 1:42:38The player starts at 1:42:38, the beginning of this part.
This segment1:42:38 to 1:57:55 · 15 min 17 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenMufti Abu Layth says drawing lots is an established principle of the Shari'ah, and that a small lottery stake is not haram, though he does not encourage it.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth reads from Sunan Abi Dawud the report that three men who had all slept with one woman in one purity cycle disputed her child before Ali in Yemen, and Ali, when none would give way, cast lots between them. Mufti says the Prophet, told of it, laughed until his molars showed rather than calling lottery haram, and that a scholar contemporary with al-Shafi'i and Ahmad ibn Hanbal, whose name the captions do not catch [?], called drawing lots here the Sunnah. He then reads from a later Hanbali work [?], ranked by Salafis just beneath Ibn Taymiyya, which treats lots as a principle of the Shari'ah: the case of a man unsure which wife he divorced, a report in Bukhari, Abu Hurayra's report of two men disputing an animal, two men disputing an inheritance without evidence, and lots over who calls the adhan and over custody. Mufti concludes that while he does not encourage it, the small lottery people play for a pound is not haram.
- Some terms in this segment are uncertain
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says he does not encourage the small lottery people play, a pound here or there, but it is not haram.
“this minor lottery that people play a pound here there i don't encourage it but it's not haram”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine1:42:38 to 1:57:55 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
have an alter ego that is kind of like they they think they confused they they think they were hobbies sometimes this kind of dogmatic mind frame and other people have it as well now so some braveries have it and other people now they have this understanding this is how it is this is the sharia this and sometimes people will say oh how does muftiya bulay say oh my god he makes things halal oh my god [Music] [Laughter] so let's take a look at some rulings people
sharia and as always as always let's refer to the books of sunnah so this is this is a commentary on abu dhabi but this is taken from abu dhabi a major book of sunnah within the um six major texts within sunni sources of law so you have here there is a hadith this is under the bab
this comes under the chapter of talaq by the way but it's under the bab now i'm not going to finish the chapter heading yet i'm going to build a little suspense let me give you a scenario people give you a scenario there is a situation where a woman a muslim woman muslim woman has had sex
nothing i mean that's normal with three men muslim muslim muslim men in one menstrual cycle so within a couple of weeks so within let's say three weeks two to three weeks she's slept with three men three now she has a child so the three men muslim they say that's my son that's my i mean to be
faith not specific whether it's a son but it's a child so they say that's my child so this guy says that's my child that guy says he's that guy says it is the woman is she's confused as well she's like
this this one this one is wrong so she she's also confused that who does it belong to so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam has sent said he's the now how does satan ali deal with this matter i want you to take a look at this now what do you think according to the dogmatists
what ought to be happening first of all she ought to be stoned she ought to be killed then the men ought to be either killed or flogged surely surely this one
there ought to be something but what is it that happens so here is a hadith if they disagree regarding the child we've disagreed regarding the child what should we do so they didn't transmits this hadith i was sitting by the prophets
a yemeni man came he said three people in africa he said and this by the way satan ali is sent during the last years of the prophet's life to yemen um he's sent there as an ambassador and so on he deals with their fears so and he collects taxes and things like that he says that they came to ali disagreeing disputing regarding a child
and they all had intercourse with with the same woman during one menstrual purity cycle so basically she couldn't tell uh who got her pregnant so he says said ali says to two of them how about would you let that you know would you two let him have it and they say no hell no then he says to the other two would you let him no no no then he says to these two would you let him no no so basically none of them are settling to have the child sorry to give up the child then what does he say he says antum
shurakam basically you all have a dispute it's like you've all got to claim so how are we going to settle this i'm going to do a lottery huh huh huh a lottery in nottingham lottery isn't lottery haram
[Music] and that's how we settle the judgment how did the prophet sallam react did he say this is haram lotteries kuffar is haram is from this is from that how did the prophet respond
rasulullah the prophet laughed so loud that you could see hatha but [Music] you could see his molar kind of teeth at the back so but is this ruling ah but the scholars didn't exist scholars don't accept any scholars don't accept any scholars ah well what is your cha-cha is
the contemporary of imam shafi who had his own method and the contemporary of imam ahmadis who has his own madhhab in the what does he say he says this is not only do i accept this he says to do lottery to do a lottery to determine who gets the child is the sunnah it is the sun [Music]
to do lottery but here i've read it from abu dhabi let's not stop there let's bring the dada in
some interesting books regarding divorce and why does he bring this up because he's speaking about if a person there was an issue where a person divorced one of his wives but he wasn't sure who he divorced i i a muslim world problems yeah what's your problem what's going on you look a bit down yeah i divorced one of my wives i'm just not sure which one it was
so the solution so the solution is uh that you do a lottery and you determine so so under this discussion ibn then brings this whole thing so he brings it under the section this is on page 522 of this we the fossil uh feman
about divorcing one of his wives and not being sure and then he speaks about this matter and what the humblings have said and which side he goes with and but then he goes on to speak about lottery he says and as to determining things through lottery he says then we have mentioned min usually that he says we have mentioned from the principles of how this is legislated within the sharia maya
how this is in certain cases the most deserving outcome in matters that you judge by lottery he then goes on to say there is a hadith in bukhari he mentions there is a hadith in bukhari where the prophet sallam uses lottery to determine the outcome he says in the sunan there is a hadith in the muslin of ahmed there is a hadith by abu hurairah that two men came and they were claiming both arguing over a particular animal that he's saying it belongs to me saying it belongs to me and
and then the prophet sallam says that okay because he couldn't be sure he he did a lottery between them okay he then says that there is a hadith that the prophet that you can make people take an oath but if they both dislike to take an oath should we force them say by allies as if they disliked or check this out people for intelligence
or if they both were too eager to take why are you so eager to take an oath hmm she becomes suspect in that case folies let them do a lottery over the outcome allah allah then there is a hadith
in the sunan by um this is who this is this is him bringing in his book but that'll fight not me not me not the maliki's when i say the maliki say that the sharia accommodates with this and it does that and this acid they go [Music] this on [Laughter]
right who to them is just a tarja beneath even the tamiya so you've got the prophet you've got ibn taymiyyah then you've got ibrahim so he says and i do like him don't get me wrong obviously i don't worship him like that they do but i i do like him so he says in this next hadith from um that two people came arguing over what over inheritance inheritance where allah says that allah have been laid out they've been arguing over inheritance
and he says that because they'd lost the evidence of who it belonged to so the prophet said to them because you can't bring a beginner who this who was the rightful inheritor amongst those two people he says and he does the prophet does warn them that look if you're going to bring a false thing then you will be liable on the day of judgment and it is unlawful for you to take it but how does it end
he says the prophet said that he says that you go you do this division if you can and then he mentions that you do a lottery over it and whoever wins it he then has to um the other person has to kind of forego his claim okay fulfill his claim then he goes on to mention saad in yom al-qaeda between the people who gives adhan use the lottery
then he says you can use the lottery in the sharia has been used over who gets guardianship of the child is it the mother of the father there's been lottery phil he says now and he goes on to say people even did it over inheritance to do with wives to do with this to do with that
this is the lottery people the lottery so next time when people say the lottery is such a bad thing and i'm not trying to say people should be going playing the lottery but i had said in the past in some rulings that look this minor lottery that people play a pound here there i don't encourage it but it's not haram and people oh my god gambling gambling lottery is haram even if you it's for sadaqah this is what people say
[Laughter] he's saying that it is from the principles of the sharia to use lottery [Music] it's a very fascinating book by the way the same you know there's a since we're on this book i i don't like but since people say oh this mufti abu leith why does he discuss things huh why does he discuss certain matters
Paragraphs overlapping 1:42:38 to 1:57:55. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2020-09-22-S18, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/18/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2020, September 22). Is drawing lots or playing the lottery haram in Islam? [Video, segment 2020-09-22-S18, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/18/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2020. "Is drawing lots or playing the lottery haram in Islam?" Video, segment 2020-09-22-S18, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded September 22, 2020. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/18/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2020-09-22-S18, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Is drawing lots or playing the lottery haram in Islam?}}, year = {2020}, month = {9}, date = {2020-09-22}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/18/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/18/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2020-09-22-S18, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
Something wrong here?
Tell us what is wrong and it will be checked against the recording. Nothing changes until a person has reviewed it.
Sending a note needs JavaScript, which is off or unavailable in this browser. Nothing has been sent.
No name, email address or account is asked for or stored, and the inbox does not store your IP address. For rate limiting it keeps an unreadable fingerprint of your connection for 48 hours, and our database provider's own logs record connections as every website's do. Only your note, its kind, the page and the moment in the recording are kept, for review.