Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
Muslims cannot condone the Blue Whale game no matter how innocuous or innocent it may sound.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
As far as we learn from the media and the experts, the Blue Whale is a mysterious game. It cannot be located in the physical world as it exists only in the cloud, hidden in a world that is accessible only to the participants.
Once it finds its victims who are mostly the vulnerable youth, it traps them in a world with no escape. It is akin to someone signing his death certificate – all on the pretext of playing a challenging game which ultimately ends with him or her taking their own life.
The game is so called to mimic the mysterious phenomenon of blue whales breaching and thus ending their lives.
Likewise, those who accept the challenge of entering the game participate in a series of games consisting of 50 challenges over 50 days. The game begins with tasks such as waking up at 4 am and watching horror films.
The challenges increase in intensity finally climaxing with the final challenge – suicide – mimicking the blue whales beaching.
According to some reports, hundreds of vulnerable teenagers have taken their own lives – being victims of this act of cyberbullying.
Now that we have described the real nature of the game, the Islamic answer is clear. No Muslim could ever sanction such a game. Let me state the reasons:
1- We are not allowed to do anything that may ultimately cause our death. So, those who create and administer such games, as well as those who enter such games are contributing to killing themselves or others.
2- No Muslim is allowed to surrender himself or herself to anyone other than Allah. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “There is no obedience due to anyone in disobedience to the Creator.”
Those who enter the game surrender themselves to the administrator who traps him into a net which will catch him as a prey finally causing his demise and destruction.
3- Allah says, “Killing a single person – except for due course of justice is like killing all of humankind; likewise, saving a single life is like saving all of humankind.” (Al-Ma’idah 5:32)
Based on this, Muslims cannot condone such games no matter how innocuous or innocent they may sound.
4- Allah warns us that Satan will use any devious or surreptitious ways of leading humankind astray thus causing their self- destruction. Allah says, “Verily, Satan is your plain enemy; so, recognize him as your enemy.” (Fatir 35:6)
Such games and frivolities are works of Satan and his troops from both species of jinn and humankind.
5- Finally, according to the juristic principle, “That which leads to committing the haram is also forbidden.”
In light of these, there is no justification for sanctioning Blue Whale game which is akin to sanctioning acts of terrorism and taking innocent lives.
I pray to Allah to save our youth and adults from all devious traps and trails of this world and the next. Amen.
Almighty Allah knows best.