Running an internet café with video games

A question about joining in opening an entertainment internet café offering video games, internet and printing, in which Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya answered that recreation is permissible in principle, so the project is permissible and its profit lawful if it is free of what sharia bars and its owners undertake not to distract their customers from their duties, while it is forbidden if it includes forbidden things or causes duties to be neglected, the test being content and purpose. ¹

The questioner said he intends to join a friend in opening an entertainment internet café whose activities include video games, unrestricted internet access, printing, fax and other services, and that a relative told him the project is forbidden because it falls under idle play and distracts from prayer, remembrance and useful work; he asked about the ruling. ¹

Dar al-Ifta began by explaining that sharia came to secure people's interests in this life and the next and balanced the needs of soul and body, citing al-Qasas 77 as explained by Ibn Kathir in his commentary (6/253–254), that your Lord, your self, your family and your guest each have a claim on you, and that sharia permits forms of recreation that do not conflict with its aims, as the Prophet ﷺ established the meaning of recreation in the hadith of Hanzala al-Usayyidi in Sahih Muslim with the words 'an hour and an hour', which al-Munawi in Fayd al-Qadir (4/40) explains as resting the soul with something permitted that carries neither punishment nor reward, reporting that Abu al-Darda used to refresh his heart with some permitted amusement so as to be livelier for the truth. ¹ It said the project includes services that are permissible in themselves, such as printing and fax, and that the difficulty concerns the entertainment side, the video games and open internet, whose ruling depends on the nature of the content and its purpose: if the games are free of forbidden things and serve a permissible end there is no objection, because play and recreation are permissible in principle unless joined to something forbidden, by the general sense of Yusuf 12, the agreed-upon hadith of Aisha on the Abyssinians playing with their spears while the Prophet screened her as she watched, and the report of Umar in Ahmad and Ibn Hibban, 'teach your boys to swim and your fighters to shoot'; it quoted Ibn al-Qass in Fawa'id Hadith Abi Umayr (p. 16) that spending money on children's games is not consuming wealth wrongfully so long as they are not among the forbidden pastimes. ¹

Dar al-Ifta then listed the conditions for permissible recreation: that play not become the player's habit to the point of a harmful addiction that distracts him from his duties, by the hadith of Ibn Abbas that there is no harm and no reciprocating harm; that it not lead to neglecting God's rights such as the prayers, lest one fall under al-Ma'un 4–5, since what leads to the forbidden is forbidden, as al-Izz ibn Abd al-Salam says in Qawa'id al-Ahkam (2/218); that the games not involve the gambling forbidden in al-Ma'ida 90; that play not be joined to forbidden conduct such as depicting nakedness or suggestions inviting moral dissolution, by al-Nur 30 and the hadith in Muslim forbidding a man to look at another man's nakedness, with al-Nawawi's note in his commentary (4/30) of consensus on its prohibition, and the hadith of Abu al-Darda that nothing weighs heavier in the balance than good character; that the game not contain devotional rituals contrary to Muslim belief, since religion must be preserved, as al-Adawi says and al-Ghazali in al-Mustasfa (p. 174) on the five aims; that play not lead to quarrel and hatred or involve violence, by al-Ma'ida 91; that it not be among the espionage games banned locally or internationally, by the prohibition in al-Hujurat 12 and the duty of obeying the ruler in what is not sinful in al-Nisa 59, with al-Qarafi's statement in al-Furuq (2/103) that a ruler's decision removes disagreement; and that it not lead to neglecting people's rights, above all one's dependants, by the agreed-upon hadith of Ibn Umar that each of you is a shepherd, and the hadith of Abdullah ibn Amr that it is sin enough for a man to neglect those he supports. ¹ It said that providing games or access to websites containing such forbidden things enables others to do wrong and makes it easy for them, so the owner who allows these violations becomes a partner in every sin committed on his premises, and partnership in the project becomes cooperation in sin and transgression, forbidden in al-Ma'ida 2. ¹

Dar al-Ifta concluded that if the entertainment café is free of everything sharia bars, such as games and websites that expose nakedness or invite vice, and its owners undertake what is needed so as not to help distract their customers from religious duties such as prayer, it is permissible and its profit lawful; but if it includes forbidden things, such as laxity over pornographic content or forbidden games, or causes customers to neglect their duties, it becomes forbidden and partnership in it is cooperation in sin and transgression; the test is content and purpose, and a Muslim must watch over himself and his wealth. ¹

Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya published this fatwa on dar-alifta.org as no. 8912, dated 8 April 2026, in the category of sport and recreation, among the fatwas of the Grand Mufti Nazir Muhammad Ayyad. 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.