A clear and sound hadith found in the Muwata states, “Whoever plays backgammon has disobeyed God and His Messenger.” In Imam Muslim’s version, the hadith is, “Whoever plays backgammon has dipped his hand into the flesh and blood of a pig.”
The Prophet’s statements about such things as playing backgammon reflect his seriousness and concern for his community. He reminded us that, “Most of humanity cheat themselves of two precious things: good health and leisure.” Leisure in Arabic is faragh, which means “emptiness.” It is the time one is free of preoccupation. Most of us fill that time with trivial pursuits, such as watching television, listening to music, playing games, and engaging in empty chatter. Before we know it, our lives are gone. Our seconds become minutes, our minutes hours, our hours days, and our days years, until suddenly we find that our lives are over, and what have we accomplished? “By time, surely humanity is in loss except those who believe and do good works, and enjoin each other to the truth and to patience.” This surah reminds us that time is our capital—each minute is irreplaceable, and either we invest it in the next life or squander it here in an inevitable progression toward spiritual bankruptcy.
The scholars of the past, more than others, understood the precious value of time. One of the early scholars said that when he walked in the marketplace and saw people playing backgammon, he wished he could buy with gold the time they were wasting so that he could use it wisely. Islam is not a harsh religion, nor a religion that deprives people of enjoyment, but it is a religion that demands a level of seriousness, commitment, and concern with the human condition. We should use our time to better ourselves and improve conditions for others, and this does not exclude utilizing our time for recreation and renewal. A companion of the Prophet, Abu al-Darda said, “I sometimes use purposeless things to reinvigorate myself for purposeful things,” and that is the essence of recreation. We all need “downtime” to relax and restore ourselves for the challenges of life and the preparation for the next life.
Games, recreation, fun, folly, silliness, and vacations all have their place in our lives, but the tragedy occurs when those activities become the purpose of our lives, and the true purpose of life is entirely missed.
Our efforts are directed towards recreation: we work to play, believing that the week is only an excuse for the weekend. The world is filled with people who are “killing time,” completely unaware that time is actually killing us. One day, we will wake up and have to face our lives in their entirety. According to Imam al-Awzi (d. 157/774), everyone will watch their lives from start to finish on the Day of Judgment. No one will be allowed to interrupt to edit or to explain. What we watch will simply be a rerun of our entire lives, yet this time around, we will be painfully aware of the meaning that eluded us the first time because we were not paying attention. The Stoic philosopher Seneca (d. 575 BH/65 CE) said, “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested.”
If playing chess once concerned the scholars of Islam, what would they say to us today about our habits of watching television and films and playing videogames, about our endless conversations on cell phones and on-line chatting, or about the hours that we spend surfing the net and reading empty blogs written by people with little to say and less to do? Our scholars’ concern was our salvation and well-being, and while Muslims today may see them as zealous or fanatics, on the Day the Debts fall due and we are taken to account for every moment of our lives, those scholars will be seen for the giants they were, and their counsel to us will be a bitter taste of remorse in our mouths.
Extracted from “Chess in the Light of the Jurist” by Hamza Yusuf
