Question
Selam
I heard that the prophet said when one gets in a fight one should avoid hiting the face does that mean that boxing is haram becuse one hits one another in the face
Answer
The directives of the Prophet (pbuh) about not targeting face are in accordance to the general concern of a rational and humane mind to avoid harming others and ourselves. It seems the reason face in particular is mentioned is because it can easily be subjected to long lasting or even permanent damage. These narrations from the Prophet (pbuh) remind us that inline with our human instinct of respecting God’s creatures, we should not put ourselves or others in a situation that could lead to such unnecessary harm on our or other person’s body, being face or other parts.
It is based on an individual to investigate whether boxing or any other sport or exercise will purposfully1 put him or others in the situation described above. You can easly find a number of articles about this on internet and can make your mind about it by reading them and also your own observations.
- I intentionally put the word “purposefully” there as there is a difference between an exercise that could involve risk of serious damage and the one where causing serious damage is in fact the feature (if not the aim) of that exercise. [↩]