Human consciousness does not condone violence. Fighting in self-defence has never been deemed blameworthy, but violence for its own sake is something the human conscience cannot accept. As for violence as entertainment, there is no doubt about its reprehensibility. To inflict violence—or to have it inflicted—and to watch it as a spectacle are alike an insult to humanity, manifestations of savagery and barbarity. The human conscience has always raised a cry of protest against it. For this very reason the blood-soaked spectacles of gladiators have been consigned to the pages of history, and wars have been restrained. Yet despite this civilizational progress, a few relics of the age of savagery remain alive today in the form of violent sports. The modern, ‘civilized’ human being not only accepts them as normal and takes pleasure in them, but even advocates for them.
There are some sports of strength and agility in which injury is possible but not intended—the aim is merely to demonstrate physical superiority or skill—such as football, judo–karate, and kabaddi. But there are other sports whose very object is to injure the opponent and to prevail through violence—such as boxing and MMA. In these, points are awarded for landing blows, and a knockout secures certain victory. Under their rules, even if one player dies at the hands of another, it is regarded neither as intentional homicide nor as manslaughter.
Savage ferocity exists in human nature as an animal impulse—often described as the search for thrill—but not everyone has the courage to undergo the experience personally. Hence, to gratify this instinct, people sometimes set animals against one another and sometimes humans, creating the conditions that incite animals to fight and offering motives such as fame and wealth to induce humans to beat and be beaten, to kill and be killed. The victors in these sports are hailed as heroes; wealth and celebrity court them. Those who lose their lives in them are commemorated as martyrs, as if they had sacrificed themselves for public amusement.
The question, then, is whether such violent sports can have any justification.
It is said that since they are conducted with the consent of the participants and under set rules, they are permissible. But how can a fundamentally immoral act become moral and permissible merely by mutual consent and regulation? Striking another, winning by causing injury and harm—is that not in essence immoral? If it is, how can consent and a regulatory umbrella confer legitimacy? Human beings can be induced—by artfully crafted incentives—to do almost anything, licit or illicit.
The practice of sati in India is illustrative. There was a time when becoming sati was esteemed a mark of fidelity and honor. Women regarded it as a matter of pride. The British had to struggle hard to abolish it; they tried to dissuade women through various inducements, yet many still preferred to become sati. Their consent was involved, but the human conscience did not countenance it. Today no one seeks an ethical warrant for it. If a person’s suicide is not deemed acceptable merely because he consents to it, how can people be permitted— knowingly—to beat and batter one another? How can it be reasonable that more violence is impermissible but less violence is permissible?
Public indifference toward violent sports stems from their having become normalized in our civilization. Human psychology has the property that, once habituated, it ceases to perceive even grave evils as repugnant. Yet when attention is drawn to them, the sound human nature awakens.
Violent sports should be deemed oppression and aggression—morally reprehensible and legally prohibited. For Muslims, in any case, these sports are impermissible: their God forbids wrongdoing and excess and prohibits casting one’s own life into destruction.