Does Islam ban sports competitions?

No, not on the strength of this hadith. The line people quote, “la sabaqa illa fi khuffin aw fi hafirin aw nasl”, limits which contests may carry a prize: sabaq, with a fatha, is the winner’s prize. The Prophet ﷺ raced Aisha on foot and held horse races in Madinah.

Where it really comes from

Abu Hurayrah narrated it. Khuff is the camel’s padded foot, hafir the hoof, nasl the arrowhead.

Al-Tirmidhi files it under “wagers and prizes” and grades it hasan; al-Albani says sahih (Tirmidhi 1700, sahih (al-Albani)).

One vowel

Everything turns on the vowel after the b. Sabaq, with a fatha, is money put up for the winner of a race; sabq, with a sukun, is getting ahead. Ibn al-Athir (d. 1210, Mosul) draws that line in al-Nihayah, his dictionary of rare hadith words, and E. W. Lane’s 19th-century Arabic-English Lexicon agrees.

Al-Khattabi (931-998, Bust), explaining Abu Dawud’s collection, says the sound narration has the fatha: a prize is earned only in these three and their like. Even there, Ibn Hajar reports, scholars agreed that a pot both racers pay into, winner takes all, is ruled out as gambling.

Some editions, including the Arabic above, print the sukun. Read that way, it can sound like “no racing”, which may be how the myth began.

A different saying, about swimming, archery and riding, has its own check: “Teach your children swimming, archery and horse riding”: who said it?

What the Prophet ﷺ did

A foot race with Aisha

Abu Dawud filed this race four reports after the prize hadith, under “racing on foot”. He did not read the prize rule as a ban on running.

Musnad Ahmad 26277, isnad jayyid (Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut and others), adds the scene. On a journey he sent the others ahead, raced her, lost and said nothing. Once she had put on weight and forgotten, he raced her again, won, and laughed: “This is for that.”

Horse races in Madinah

In Madinah the Prophet ﷺ arranged horse races on two courses, and Ibn ’Umar raced in them (Bukhari 2868, sahih (al-Bukhari)). The reports give no year.

Horses made lean for racing ran five to seven Arab miles by the narrators’ count, from al-Hafya’ to Thaniyyat al-Wada’. The rest ran about a mile, on to the mosque of Banu Zurayq (Bukhari 2868, sahih (al-Bukhari); Bukhari 2870, sahih (al-Bukhari)).

Ibn Hajar (d. 1449, Cairo) calls racing praiseworthy exercise, not idle play. Al-Baji (d. 1081, al-Andalus) notes that nothing in this report shows a prize.

Prizes in other contests

Ibn Hazm (994-1064, Cordoba) records agreement that racing on horses, on camels and on foot is allowed. For horse races, Ibn Hajar adds agreement on a prize from someone outside the race. Beyond the three, scholars differ on prizes:

• No prize outside the three and what is like them, even from someone outside the contest: the agreed view of the four schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali), and al-Khattabi’s.
• A little wider: some scholars counted foot races, and some stone-throwing, among them, as al-Mubarakfuri (d. 1935, India) records.
• Any permissible contest, if the prize comes from outside it (a sponsor, not the players): a view within the Maliki school and of ’Ata’ ibn Abi Rabah, also adopted by AAOIFI, the Islamic finance standards body, and by Ibn ’Uthaymin.

We take no side here. For your own case, ask a scholar you trust.

What to share instead

Then race someone at home this week, with only a rematch at stake.

Read next: Archery, the third contest in the hadith

Sources

1. Ibn al-Athir, al-Nihayah fi Gharib al-Hadith, and E. W. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, root s-b-q, via the Arabic Lexicon site. https://arabiclexicon.hawramani.com/%d8%b3%d8%a8%d9%82/
2. Al-Khattabi, Ma’alim al-Sunan, quoted in ’Awn al-Ma’bud on Sunan Abi Dawud, hadith 2574, with Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut’s notes. https://hadithprophet.com/hadith-2210.html
3. Sunan Abi Dawud, hadith 2578 and its heading, racing on foot. https://hadithprophet.com/hadith-2214.html
4. Al-Mubarakfuri, Tuhfat al-Ahwadhi on Jami’ al-Tirmidhi, hadith 1700, with al-Tirmidhi’s heading and grading. https://hadithprophet.com/hadith-59900.html
5. Ibn Hajar al-’Asqalani, Fath al-Bari on Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith 2868: racing as exercise and the points of agreement on prizes. https://hadithprophet.com/hadith-33609.html
6. Al-Baji, al-Muntaqa on al-Muwatta’, hadith 1002 (the Madinah horse race). https://hadithprophet.com/hadith-46548.html
7. Musnad Ahmad, hadith 26277, with the grading of Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut’s edition. https://hadithprophet.com/hadith-29665.html
8. Ibn Hazm, Maratib al-Ijma’, section on racing and archery, Arabic Wikisource. https://ar.wikisource.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%A8_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B9/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%B2%D8%A1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%84/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%A8%D9%82_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%85%D9%8A
9. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, entry on Ghiyath ibn Ibrahim (the report via Ahmad ibn Zuhayr from his father), with Ibn al-Jawzi’s list of the narrator’s critics, via the Hadith Transmitters Encyclopedia. https://hadithtransmitters.hawramani.com/%d8%ba%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%ab-%d8%a8%d9%86-%d8%a5%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%87%d9%8a%d9%85-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%83%d9%88%d9%81%d9%8a/
10. Al-Mawsu’ah al-Fiqhiyyah, Dorar al-Saniyyah, Kitab al-Sibaq: a prize from a third party in contests outside the three (Arabic). https://dorar.net/feqhia/11494
11. “Al-Mahdi”, Wikipedia: reign dates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mahdi

Hadith on this page

• Bukhari 2868, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Bukhari 2870, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Abu Dawud 2574, sahih (al-Albani)
• Abu Dawud 2578, sahih (al-Albani)
• Tirmidhi 1700, sahih (al-Albani)