SunniPath on Fantasy Football
Published by Haseeb June 8th, 2006 in Islam, Personal, Softballers, SportsSunniPath.com is one of the best sources of traditional Islamic knowledge and scholarship on the web, and I personally am a big fan and supporter of their work. I proudly carry a link to their site on my blog and personally know several people involved with the organization (students & TAs). In addition to their online classes (Summer Registration is NOW Open!), they have a free Q&A section where anyone can submit their questions to be answered by scholars.
I regularly read the questions & answers to not only learn about these scholar’s stances on certaine issues, but also just to get a vibe of what Muslims are going through in their lives, and the issues that pertain to them. Nonetheless, the range of questions are quite vast. I recently came across the question of fantasy football and whether or not its allowed. Now aside from the fact that I personally think its a little absurd for someone to even question how a game such as fantasy football could be not allowed, I really appreciated the wisdom in Ustadha Shazia Ahmad’s response. She writes:
In the name of Allah
, the most Merciful, the most Compassionate.
It is permissible to play Fantasy Football unless there is money paid upfront, in which case it would be considered gambling; i.e. unlawful.
However, in our experience Fantasy football becomes, at times, unpleasant because it causes one to root for individual players instead of your team. For example, if you’re a Steelers fan and have Randel El on your team but not Hines Ward, you’ll be rooting for only Randel El to score a touchdown and actually against Hines Ward.
In any case, this is my advice to your friends. Although the world of sports is exciting and fun to watch, the amount of time that you need to watch real football to have an intuition good enough to play Fantasy Football is a lot. Most sports fanatics do not realize how much time they are spending on their sport. One football game, for example, is 3 hours each. So on any given Sunday, if one was to watch two football games along with the pre-game show and the post-game show, he would actually end up spending 10 hours on that day.
One needs to examine how much he could be accomplishing if he was to spend this ten hours in remembrance of Allah
And Allah
Now of course I knew fantasy football was allowed. But what I found most meaningful (and personally relevant) was her naseeha (advice) on the time sports fanatics spend watching and following various sports. I will be the first to admit that my following of the Mets is indeed quite fanatical, and i do spend alot of time following and watching games (well not so much anymore since i dont get the new Mets channel). But unfortunately a great deal of my time is spent on Sports. In addition to my Mets (who play 162 regular season games a year+ playoffs), the NBA Finals are about to start, Im also an avid Football (NFL) fan (there go most of my Sundays during football season), and most of my Sundays in the summer will be spent with the South Asian Softball League. And for all of you soccer fans, the world cup is about to begin!
Now if all that time itself spent on various sports isn’t wasteful enough, these sports teams and players really do leave an emotional impact on some fans. I really do feel happy and proud when my Softballers, or Mets win a game, and conversely, get upset and bummed out when we lose. The same holds true for all true fans for any team (especially in soccer). Now, this really has made me re-question my inner-priorities, and what truly has a deeper-roots in my heart. Has my fanatacism for these sports teams taken away from the love and reveration I aught to have towards my greater priorities in life (Worship, Studies, Family Responsibilites [all for the sake of God])? Or even worse - what truly upsets me more? When I oversleep and have to pray a make-up Fajr prayer, or if the mets/softballers lose a game?
Please do not get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with being a fan of sports. I will always be a Mets fan, and will always love baseball, basketball, football, etc. But like one of my dearest friends always says, its all about moderation. We really have to keep not only our time in check, but also our nafs’.
So… Lets go Softballers! & Lets go Mets! Inshallah we will continue to win and dominate… but if we don’t… Alhamdulillah nonetheless 
I heart SunniPath
Assalaamualaikum Br. Haseeb,
I don’t know your email address, but I would like to encourage you to sign up on Association of Muslim Health Professionals List Serv.
http://www.amhp.us/
Subscribe: http://www.amhp.us/listserv.asp
take care.
wasalam
Salam
I definitely love Sunni Path and visit it often, but i think haseeb is right, sometimes the questions that are asked are a little too specific and require more common sense than anything…
-saad
its called FOOTBALL not soccer!
SufiPath i mean SunniPath RULES!!!!!
look if u want to call soccer futbol, i might do that,
but FOOTBALL to me is AMERICAN FOOTBALL!
-Sidi Faraz’s blog
its football damn it!
Her reponse was very well written…and here i thought sunnipath was pointless. Reminds me of the line “There are more things in this world than are dreamt of in your philosophies my dear Horatio.” Sunnipath proly does help lots of people determine what they should and shouldnt be doing and meanwhile jerks like me first response is thats so freaking lame..giving it thought, whats so lame about being meticilous or correct? I feel a bit delerious just saying something so positive, i must be on drugs or something but in any case Mad props to hahmed for being able to give sunnipath props in such a subtle way. Lately i’ve been thinking…this haseeb guy is on target pretty often, even when he takes strong stands and in case you ladies had forgotten… he’s single. He’s also a med student and just moved to a new house…while i’m at it i should tell you his younger brother naveed, the 3 year grad isnt taken either …lmao
Salaam ‘Alaikum
Alhamdulillah when the answers are obvious to us, but if you reflect on the question being asked (and the many others like it, including the dozens and dozens that never even get posted), it will remind you of the state of our Ummah and the disappearance of knowledge from the Muslimeen.
I knew girls whose parents told them it was haram for them to touch a Qur’an until they were married — then they sent those same girls to public schools and expected them to remain pure and innocent until marriage. When they come into contact with sincere, open minded, educated Muslims who are willing to listen to them, all sorts of questions come out. Things that we know, they don’t know. They’re so confused by TV, school, magazines, music, what their parents and grandparents do under the rubric of “Islam,” that they don’t know which way is up. This is just an indication of how much work we have to do, esp. with the youth.
Muslims are so stupid, I’m surprised they’ve figured out how to use the internet.
Assalam Muali kum to all:
That’s a funny comment, “Ali C.” I think in the realm of Islam and developing my inner identity, I am kind of… stupid. I think that we try to make up for it by doing well in school, becoming engineers, doctors, or [insert high-salary profession here], but erroneously thinking that learning about Islam as a priority stopped when we stopped attending Saturday/Sunday school at the local masjid.
The Muslim immigrant community has grown up and we need Islamic education catered to the english-speaking people of 21st century. I left Vietnam when I was 3 years old; I did not grow up accepting commandments blindly, so how can I relate to some of these black and white rules? It looks like Sunnipath is trying to provide the missing explanations. Their web interface is awesome! The voice-overs are clear and great. But what’s with the mumbling and studderings by the lecturers?
Thanks for having this website and discussing Sunnipath. It has encouraged me to finally give the online course a try (and request a professional development course for those lecturers, heh, heh).