Islam has called to practicing beneficial sport and body exercises. The messenger of Allah, Muhammad (peace be upon him) also encourages it as he used to instruct his companions to engage in it for it ensures the strangeness of the body and healthy intellect. On the occasion of the 2022 World Cup hosted by Qatar for the first time in an Arabian Muslim country, IslamOnline releases a page that relates the view of Islam on sports. This is to showcase sport’s culture in Islam and to explain how our religion of Islam calls for and encourages the practicing of sports.
The page on the sport in Islam consists of numerous write-ups and research papers on the history, mental health, culture, ethics, and economics of the sport. This is in addition to compiling and displaying the most important and notable write-ups and findings that discuss Islam’s position on the sport, likewise, the history of Islamic and Arab culture.
The page does not only raise questions on the ability of sport to redefine or change the negative image of Islam, instead, it went beyond that by enhancing comprehensive and satisfactory responses for the normal readers, an act that is capable of eliminating the doubts that have been circulated and emphasized by a lot of Western media houses and research centers for decades.
What would you read from the page ‘Sport in Islam’?
Even though the page on the sport in Islam is directed to the western communities who are ignorant of many issues about Islam and the Muslims. It is also directed to Arab and Islamic communities through which they will discover that Muslims were at the forefront in terms of practicing sports activities and encouraging their descendants to be concerned about the fitness of their bodies as they show concern for their minds.
To cite a few samples for this page, we may wish to read the following contents:
- A write-up titled: “How the local Arabian and Islamic civilization embraces the global civilization in the Qatar 2022 World Cup”. This write-up sheds light on features of local Arabian and Islamic culture in the World Cup, and forms of civilizational diversity as it shows the spirit of having different human civilizations meeting.
- “A 1000 Years Amnesia: Sports in Muslim Heritage”. This is a translated article by an academic researcher at the University of Manchester on “Sport in the Islamic Heritage” and the flourishing of sports practices in the Islamic civilization and its practice in a wider sense.
- “The history of sport in Islam through the prophet’s tradition”. It explains the position of sport in Islam as a continual community need. This is discussed in the book “The Forty Hadith on Sports: i.e., forty hadith on the virtue of sports.
- “How did Muslim Physicians View Sport?” the way Muslim physicians define the sport, and its importance to the preservation of health in order to strengthen the body and prevent illness. They wrote about all these in their books, some of which are as follows:
- “Health Care in the History of Muslims”. It details on the manifestations of concern for health in Muslim history, and how the teachings of Islam encourage showing concern for health and call for its preservation. It also discusses how Muslims translated theoretical knowledge into visible action.
- “Sports among the Arabs”. How did the Arab see sport and practice it for centuries? This was due to the nature of their work which was based on movement and rigorous walking. It was a life that required continuous movement.
- “Sport and Cultural Competitions between the Muslims and the Byzantines” as it was discovered that during the reign of Bani Umayyad, Muslims were victorious over the Roman Byzantines in sports competitions (strength display Sport) when they were organized between the two sides.
- “Sport and Religion” How humanity viewed sport in antiquity, and how it noticed its connection to religion. The first one aims at overcoming the weak desire, while the second one aims at overcoming oneself.
- “Sport and Manners…Robustness of Behavior and Body”. For a very long time, there was a fact that sport has a positive impact on characters to an extent that one of the Character Training Filed was established. Islam is the first to call for the need to have a link or connection between the sport and manners. Hence, no sport exists without ethics or manners. In fact, Sport itself is manners.
- Walking… the Prophet’s sport”. This is a write-up that sheds light on the prophet’s manners (peace be upon him), and how the prophet’s tradition knew the sport of fast walking which covers a long distance and strengthens but not weakens the body. We will discover from the page that “the fastest runner” was one of the companions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) called Salamah bn al-Akwa’.
- “Sport… How did it change from Play to science?” as the sport was part and parcel of human communities from their inception. There was no community except that it knows one or more forms of sport… through movement, the sport changed from a play to science and knowledge.
- “Sport and Mental Health” as there is a correlation between sport and mental health. It strengthens passion and endurance as it turns the body tissues into strength. At the same time, it gives part of its presents to the spirit and the body.
- “Sports industry is an Integrated Economic Cycle”. To talk about the rights of broadcasting a champion and how broadcasting an English league champion becomes more expensive than the national product of 30 countries!!
- “Sport from Competition to Business”. Sport has been influenced by consumerism. The way it was looked at as competition has changed to a more complex way. It is now linked with the world of wealth and business.
From the page, we will also read the following write-ups:
The legality of practicing sport
The role of Islam in nurturing the youths
Do video games make us more intelligent?
The care for the body and the mind
Self-confidence….How do we promote it and detach it from deception?
Moderate meal….your path to better health
How do you learn to become successful?
What is Mental Exhaustion?
Practicing Sports between yesterday and today
A healthy body in a healthy imagination
Sport is our work and the Prophet is our model
The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) the seal of the messengers and the Prophets said: “A strong believer is better and dearer to Allah than a weak one, and both are good” (Sahih Muslim).
In order to study many aspects of the Prophet’s life, we recalled the history of the sport: Forty Hadith on the virtue of sport authored by Muhammad Khair Ramadan Yusuf, a book that is considered so important in this aspect. In fact, every Muslim and non-Muslim reader (male or female) should read it so as to take a correct Islamic culture from the world of sports. The author had sieved the books of noble hadith, and he compiled authentic traditions that are related to different aspects of sports. With that, he was able to present to us a glimpse on the position of sport, its types, its benefits, and its ethics in the history of Islam. The author pointed to his methodology, its drives, its aims, and scopes. He asserted that this book of his: “does not contain all forms of sports in Islam. It is also not an objective examination of different aspects of sports, instead, it is just a contribution and a reminder on some aspects of sports justifying that with some authentic hadith”
Of the benefits of sport is its ability to provide the body its due right. Reported by Abdullah bn Amr may Allah be pleased with them that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: “Your body has right over you”. Also, of the benefits of features of sport in Islam is that: “it is not the target on its own, instead, it is just a means to virtues acts”
The Prophetic traditions have revealed to us many forms of sports in the history of Islam which cover different fields that a person should get himself involved in one of them at least. Among them are the sports of walking, wrestling, boxing, swordplay, hunting, horse racing, learning swimming, spiritual sport, and so on.
Today, no place on the earth could be exempted from the discussion about the sport. For this, we observe that the great attention given to sports today necessitates for Muslims to go back to the verses and hadith related to sports in order to seek clarity about Islamic rulings, sport ethics, and their implementation in this world of sports that is saturated with violations related to the body, society, and character.
In this matter, there is a great responsibility on the media personnel, the writers, the administrators and sportsmen to help create awareness on wrong thoughts and wrong notions about the relationship between Islam and Muslim relations with sports.
It is worth mentioning that the number of views on the Islamonline Website is more than 4 million monthly.
