Asalamualaikum,
insh’Allah you are well. I would like a ruling from you.
I am a practising Muslim and I regularly engage in worship, islamic learning and fulfill my obligatory duties as well as optional. I purchased the video game titled ‘last of us’ to play in my spare time, simply for some entertainment and it is still unopened. As far as I am aware, it contains some doubtful matters: mainly profanity, violence and presence of women. I intend to mute the audio, so I won’t hear the profanity, however there remains the question of whether it’s halal to play a video game which contains a young female character in it, there are no illicit relationships in the game, it’s mainly a game where the characters are simply trying to survive in a zombie apocalypse world. There is however quite a bit of violence in the game, you have to kill the zombies in the game which is troubling me.
Could you please advise whether it’s halal to play this game, there is only a short timeframe within which I can return the game so I would be very grateful if you could respond as soon as possible.
JazakAllah khayran
الجواب وبالله التوفيق
As per the situation described in your question, it is haram to play such video games whether the volume is muted or not, due to this activity being a useless and a pure waste of time.
وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَنۡ يَّشۡتَرِىۡ لَهۡوَ الۡحَدِيۡثِ لِيُضِلَّ عَنۡ سَبِيۡلِ اللّٰهِ (سورہ لقمان
عن مجاہد قال، ھو الغناء و کل لعب و لہو (فتاوی دارالعلوم زکریا بحوالہ در منثور، ص 657، ج7
واللہ اعلم بالصواب