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Rules for combat sports that involve blows to the head

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A question about the ruling on sports that involve blows to the head, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that Islam encourages sports that give the body fitness and health, and forbids whatever harms the body, such as blows to the face and head, whose danger of concussion or death has been established; it cited the hadith in al-Bukhari that whoever fights should avoid the face, and al-Nawawi's reasoning as quoted by Badr al-Din al-Ayni in Umdat al-Qari that the face is delicate, gathers a person's beauty and is the seat of most perception, so a blow to it risks disabling or disfiguring it. It ruled that it is a principle of sharia that whatever is proven harmful is proven forbidden, so these sports are forbidden if they cause harm or injury to the person struck, unless the measures needed to protect the players from injury are taken, such as wearing a helmet and protective clothing and similar precautions, in which case there is no blame in practising them.

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Summary

A question about sports that involve blows to the head, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that whatever is proven harmful is proven forbidden, so such sports are forbidden when they harm the person struck, unless the precautions needed to prevent injury, such as helmets and protective clothing, are taken, in which case there is no blame in them. 1

The question

The questioner asked about the ruling on sports in which blows are struck to the head. 1

The answer

The Department answered that Islam encourages Muslims to practise sport, especially activities of high value in giving the body fitness, skill and health, and forbids whatever harms the body, such as blows to the face and head, whose danger, and the concussion or death that may follow, has been established. 1 It cited the hadith in al-Bukhari in which the Prophet ﷺ forbade striking the face, saying that whoever fights should avoid the face, and the reasoning that Badr al-Din al-Ayni quotes in Umdat al-Qari (13/116) from al-Nawawi: the face is delicate, gathers a person's beauty, and is the seat of most perception through its organs, so a blow to it risks disabling or disfiguring all or part of it, and a blemish there is gross because it is exposed and visible. 1 It ruled that it is a principle of sharia that whatever is proven harmful is proven forbidden, blows to the face and head being among such things, so these sports are forbidden in sharia if they cause harm or injury to the person struck, unless the measures needed to protect the players from injury are taken, such as wearing a helmet and clothing that protects against blows that would harm any part of the body, and similar precautions, in which case there is no blame in practising them. 1

About this record

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 3799, dated 3 September 2023, in the category of competitions and games, as a research fatwa issued by the Iftaa Committee. 1 The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.

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Lahw (diversion and amusement), fiqh rulings· The no-harm maxim

People and things also explored

Injustice (zulm)· Arba'un 32 — no harm and no reciprocating harm· Selling spoiled or expired goods· Cutting prices to drive competitors out of the market· The conditions and manners of giving advice (nasiha)· Running an internet café with video games· A sale with a condition of free maintenance for the product's expected life· IIFA resolution 260 (5/26) on digital (electronic) games: rulings and rules

Sources

  1. Jordan's General Iftaa Department (aliftaa.jo) , fatwa 3799

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Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Rules for combat sports that involve blows to the head”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/work/fatwa-aliftaa-jo-combat-sports-with-blows-to-the-head/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-02.

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Qur'an, hadith, poetry, and the languages and scripts of Muslim peoples. Related

Injustice (zulm)

Injustice (zulm) for many scholars is placing things outside their place; others defined it as disposing of another's property without permission — a sense transmitted from Iyas ibn Mu'awiya — which makes it impossible for God since all He does is disposal within His own dominion, in the manner of Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali's answer to Imran ibn al-Husayn on the divine decree; commenting on 'I have forbidden injustice to Myself' in the sacred hadith, Ibn Rajab explains it as His restraining injustice from His servants, noting that on the first definition the hadith shows God is able to commit injustice but does not, out of grace, bounty, generosity and beneficence, and that His creating His servants' deeds — injustice among them — does not attribute injustice to Him, since He is described only by His own acts; he transmits a report halted at Ubayy ibn Ka'b and similarly from Ibn Masud and Zayd ibn Thabit — 'were God to punish the people of His heavens and His earth He would do so without injustice to them' — while flagging its chain; the injustice forbidden between servants is of two kinds: injustice to one's own soul, whose greatest form is association — 'association is indeed a tremendous injustice' (Luqman 13) — then sins great and small, and injustice to others, the subject of 'I have made it forbidden among you', witnessed by the Farewell Pilgrimage sermon declaring blood, property and honour sacred, by Ibn Umar's 'injustice will be darknesses on the Day of Resurrection' and by Abu Musa's 'God grants respite to the wrongdoer until, when He seizes him, He does not let him escape'.