The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia has sent a warning to chess players by issuing a fatwa that chess encourages gambling and is therefore forbidden in Islam. The game of kings is considered Haram (forbidden) and the best strategy for the faithful is to keep away from the chess board. It is a “waste of time,” according to Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh. South China Morning Post reports: Sheikh Abdullah al-Sheikh was responding to a question on a television show in which he issued fatwas to viewers who sent in queries on everyday religious matters. He said chess was “included under gambling” and was “a waste of time and money and a cause for hatred and enmity between players”. Al-Sheikh justified the ruling by referring to the verse in the Qur’an banning “intoxicants, gambling, idolatry and divination”. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s supreme Shia religious authority, has previously issued rulings forbidding chess. After the 1979 Islamic revolution, playing chess was banned in public in Iran and declared as haram, forbidden, by senior clerics because it was associated with gambling. But in 1988, Iran’s then supreme leader, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, lifted the ban and said it was permissible as long as it was not used [...]