Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #201| Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 9 Feb 2021 › Segment 27 of 37
Is it haram to hit someone in the face in boxing or MMA training?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam haraam forbidden mubah mubaah jahannam jahanam jahannum salafi salafism wahhabi wahabi wahhabismIs hitting the face in martial arts training haram?
Watch the answer
Open on YouTube at 2:10:39The player starts at 2:10:39, where the answer begins.
This segment2:10:39 to 2:14:22 · 3 min 43 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenMufti Abu Layth says hitting the face in sparring is fine; the hadith against striking the face concerned discipline, not fighting practice.
In more detail
A super chat asks what proved Islam true before modern prophecies were seen, which is not taken up, and another asks whether hitting the face is haram in the context of training. Mufti Abu Layth refers to his clip saying boxing and MMA are absolutely permissible, and says the hadith against hitting the face was about discipline, not about training or the art of fighting. Mufti says harsh discipline of children is not necessarily abuse, recalls from his teaching days that English law allowed reasonable force by a parent but not against another's child, and says ideally children are raised so that it is never needed.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedWhat is the ruling on not hitting the face? Is it haram in the context of training?
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says the hadith about not hitting the face was about discipline, not about training or practising the art of fighting.
“speaking on discipline mentioned that you shouldn't hit the face of each other oh it didn't say overchampion hit the face or just even casually with people but it wasn't talking about war training”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine2:10:39 to 2:14:22 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
and al-qaeda and daesh and these people they find they can camouflage amongst normal salafis because they are also selfie but they are the jihadi salafis and so even though all selfies are not jihadi but they can just normally mingle with them and you can't tell that who's who so it's like that you see yeah if that makes any any sense right what is going on people what is going on uh mufti would be branded a heretic i'd definitely be branded a heretic
[Laughter] uh right let me see trying to check if i've missed any super chats uh right jerry idris had super chatty shukran mufti what proved islam was true before we knew about the prophecies that we see like tall buildings and and so on um right there's also what is the ruling on not hitting the face is it haram to do uh in the context of training do watch my clip on
is boxing uh permissible or mma and it is permissible absolutely the those things were not talking about this they were talking about discipline when you're disciplining people so culturally people will discipline sometimes children um you know if they told it like it happens still in most part of the world it's you see it depends it's not right it doesn't necessarily fall under abuse okay some versions of it can be clear abuse some versions of it could just be a kind of a harsh discipline which
you wouldn't really you know maybe you wouldn't do but i don't think it's necessarily abuse either so it's different when it's done to your own children and to other children so even in this country there is a difference between so when it's your own children unless they've changed the law recently and i'm not aware that they have but when we were when i was a teacher and we were going over these laws they mentioned that you see with your own child um there has to be it like if any force is used with your own child it is
reasonable force they had this this this caveat of um or this proviso that it was reasonable but any against somebody else's child would be deemed an offense but not against your own unless it was unreasonable so this is why the and i think recently in scotland they may have changed that law but in england i don't think it's changed yet because look sometimes some children they need i mean hopefully if you can raise your children in a way that you never ever need to do that that is really the way but you know you
see some people's kids and you think you know you watch some of these programs and some of these kids wow man honestly and and some of them not to be kind of stereotypical but they usually often like white kids and the way they speak to their parents and they bully the appearance man and and they then you should see the things they the tantrums they throw and you think that would
we would fix that in a dizzy household within seconds that would just never happen you know it's like uh so i think there's there's a a difference so like this anyway the hadith uh back then you know for speaking on discipline mentioned that you shouldn't hit the face of each other oh it didn't say overchampion hit the face or just even casually with people but it wasn't talking about war training or learning how to fight or practicing the art of fighting because that's obviously uh that's what people do in those things
but you can watch my um khalib nur is the prophet's parents going to heaven or hell see the prophet's parents the question i understand you're asking genuinely but it is quite absurd the prophet's parents are unquestionably from people of salvation just as anybody before the prophet sallallahu alaihi islam uh la or somebody had asked look his super chat i can't really see it i've been through all the super chats here um
Paragraphs overlapping 2:10:39 to 2:14:22. 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 2021-02-09-S27, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/27/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, February 9). Is it haram to hit someone in the face in boxing or MMA training? [Video, segment 2021-02-09-S27, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/27/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Is it haram to hit someone in the face in boxing or MMA training?" Video, segment 2021-02-09-S27, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded February 9, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/27/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-02-09-S27, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Is it haram to hit someone in the face in boxing or MMA training?}}, year = {2021}, month = {2}, date = {2021-02-09}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/27/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/27/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2021-02-09-S27, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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