A Jurisprudential and Legal Analysis of the Evidence for the Rulings on Betting in Emerging Games Without Gambling Instruments

Betting or wagering is an act that occurs in competitions and games, and jurists (Arabic: فُقَهاء, romanized: fuqahāʾ, singular: faqīh, Arabic: فَقیه) have considerable disagreement regarding its nature and rulings. Some consider any type of betting to be gambling (Arabic: اَلْقِمار), whether it is with specific gambling tools such as backgammon and chess, or with other tools. Others believe in the substantive (essential) difference between the two and the commonality of positive corruption (void or invalid) and imperative prohibition, while the third group has also questioned its imperative prohibition. The issue of this research is to analyze the evidence of imperative and positive rulings (aḥkām, Arabic: أحْکام “rulings”, plural of ḥukm “حُکْم”) in competitions where gambling tools are not used but betting has been introduced. This is particularly relevant with regards to the emerging examples and purposes that shape this type of competition, such as car racing and martial arts. This research has investigated the opinions and documents (grounds) of jurists, especially in the last two centuries, with a descriptive-analytical method, and has concluded that apart from differences in words and evidences, other factors are involved in creating disagreements and doubts in rulings, such as the lack of distinction between imperative and positive rulings in previous jurisprudential texts, the belief in the correlation between these two rulings in the literature of non-contemporary jurisprudents, and raising this issue in jurisprudence with a variety of interpretations and vocabulary. In addition, the development of the circle of emerging exceptions according to the criterion of rulings, the analysis of the change in the legislator’s view of this category, and the expression of rational specificities and the necessity of considering them in the betting are other innovations of the present study.