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Is it permissible to continue playing football upon hearing an insult to Allah or to religion, and is this considered an explicit insult, and is the silent one regarded like the one who spoke?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Cursing the religion of inanimate objects is not disbelief, so long as one does not intend thereby to curse the religion of Allah, but it is forbidden (haram). As for cursing the Lord of the ball, if one intends thereby to curse Allah Almighty, then it is disbelief (kufr) and apostasy (riddah); otherwise, he does not disbelieve if his statement can be interpreted as disbelief or something else. Whoever hears the cursing does not disbelieve merely by remaining silent without denouncing it, but he sins if he does not denounce it despite being able to do so. It is permissible to continue playing if the evil is denounced; otherwise, it is not permissible. One must avoid excessive scrupulousness (waswasa) in these matters.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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