A two year-old video by Indonesian celebrity preacher Ustaz Abdul Somad aka UAS declaring chess as haram (forbidden for muslims) has divided the opinion of the sports fraternity in the country.
The 42-year-old is known for making other controversial statements in his sermons.
In the video uploaded to Youtube in 2017 a participant had asked UAS if playing dominoes was permissible in Islam. Somad responded, “The Hanafi madhhab (Islamic school of thought) says chess and dice games are haram (forbidden for Muslims) for two reasons: one, they could make one forget prayer, and two, they make people lose track of time for days.”
He had also questioned the rationale in chess being classified as a sport.
“How is it a sport if you’re absent-minded for three hours? If the chess association gets mad at me, so be it,” he had said in the video.
The Indonesian Sports Ministry, the Indonesian Chess Association (Percasi) and even the Indonesia’s Religious Affairs Minister Fachrul Razi have all come out in support of the sport and distanced themselves from the preachers controversial statement.
UAS is not the first person to declare chess as haram. In 2017, Malaysian preacher Shahul Hamid Seeni Muhammad the runners-up of the “Pencetus Ummah” reality program on Astro made a similar claim.
Iran had banned chess after the Islamic revolution in 1979 because the game was associated with gambling. Iranian then supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini lifted the ban in 1988 under the condition that it was not played as a means of gambling.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh ruled that chess was forbidden as it encouraged gambling and was “a waste of time and money and a cause for hatred and enmity between players.”
Based on the statements made by the Indonesian government officils, the country is not likely to ban chess, which is also a medal sports at the Manila SEA Games this year. When Chess was last included the SEA Games in 2013in Myanmar, Indonesia won five gold medals.
At the last ASEAN Para Games in Kuala Lumpur, Indonesian players had grabbed a lions share of medals at stake, winning 14 of the 24 events.
Indonesia has a number of players who were accorded Grandmaster status including Utut Adianto, who is now a Senator in the Indonesian Parliament.
The origins of chess goes back to almost 1,500 years. The game has its origins in India in the 6th century AD and spread to Persia. When the Arabs conquered Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world. It was through the Moorish conquest of Spain that chess was introduced to Europe.
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