IIFA resolution 260 (5/26) on digital (electronic) games: rulings and rules

A collective resolution of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy defining digital (electronic) games, resolving that the default for playing them is permissibility provided they are free of forbidden content and harms, permitting their production and trade and the trade in prepaid game cards, and recommending digital-education guides, legislation, parental supervision and beneficial alternatives. ¹

The Academy's council, meeting at its twenty-sixth session in Doha, considered the rulings and rules of digital (electronic) games, and began by reaffirming its earlier resolution 127 (1/14) on competition cards. ¹

The Academy defined digital games as interactive physical and mental activities carried out through modern technology or a digital application, such as action, adventure, puzzle and electronic sports games and the like. ¹ It resolved that the default for playing them is permissibility: they may be played if they contain nothing forbidden by sharia, are not accompanied by harm to religion, life, mind, property or progeny, and do not lead to aggression against others or to the neglect of duties. ¹ It permitted the production of digital games and trade in them when production and trade are free of these harms, with the intellectual property right of the author recognised, and permitted trade in digital game cards when they are prepaid cards representing known benefits. ¹

The council recommended issuing digital-education guides and enacting regulations and legislation that limit the risks of digital games and activate the means of supervising them; directing parents, guardians and those responsible for children to strengthen supervision of these games according to age group; holding seminars and meetings in the visual, audio and print media on their positive and negative aspects; and guiding programmers and specialists to create a beneficial and useful alternative with enough attraction and appeal to achieve the desired competition. ¹

The International Islamic Fiqh Academy, an organ of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, adopted this text as resolution 260 (5/26) at its twenty-sixth session in Doha (6–10 Dhu al-Qa'da 1446, 4–8 May 2025), and published it on iifa-aifi.org on 20 November 2025. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.