The sahabah, may Allah be pleased with them, asked the Messenger, sallaahu alaihi wa sallam concerning a lot of things the answer to which questions formed part of the commandments and laws guiding the lives of Muslims. Allah’s Messenger, sallaahu alaihi wa sallam listened to their enquiries, answered them with the support of Allah’s revelations to him, explaining the regulations gradually with love and tenderness to the multitude of believers that thronged around him. They asked him concerning wine and gambling in the following verse:
They ask thee concerning wine and gambling. Say: "In them is a great
sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit."
They ask thee how much they are to spend; Say: "What is beyond your
needs." Thus doth Allah Make clear to you His Signs: In order that ye
may consider- (al-Baqarah 2:219)
Some of the Sahabah, when this
verse was revealed in answer to their questions on wine and gambling,
ceased imbibing wine and engaging in gambling, since ‘the sin is greater
than the profit…’ but others among them continued to imbibe alcohol and
to gamble.
The days went by until a drunken man led people in
prayer and committed grave mistakes in recitation. He said: “I worship
that which you worship..”, in al-Kaafiruun 111:2 & 4, instead of “I
do NOT worship that which ye worship.”
The drunken imam and those
who prayed behind him were distraught. They went to the Prophet,
sallaahu alaihi wa sallam asking for the second time concerning wine and
strong drinks. And the revelation came:
O ye who believe! Approach not prayers with a mind befogged, until ye can understand all that ye say,- (an-Nisaa 4:43)
With the revelation of this verse, wine became prohibited during
prayers. Another section of the sahabah stopped imbibing alcohol
completely. Some of them avoided it in the daytime and took it after
the Ishaa prayers.
One day a party among the sahabah gathered in a
house where they caroused, engaged in bibulous activities - drunkenness
- with a lot of abuses that resulted in fisticuffs. On account
of this Umar (RA) went the Messenger of Allah, sallaahu alaihi wa
sallam, and said, ‘Oh Messenger of Allah, we need a healing proclamation
on wine.’
The Messenger of Allah, sallaahu alaihi wa sallam
prayed his Lord for a ‘healing proclamation on wine’, and the final nail
came down on the coffin of alcohol in this verse:
O ye who
believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and
(divination by) arrows, are an abomination,- of Satan's handwork: eschew
such (abomination), that ye may prosper. (al-Maa’idah, 90)
And
so it was that the prohibition of alcohol came gradually, as did all
proclamations in the Shari’ah, until finally intoxicants of all kinds
were prohibited. Before this gradual prohibition, the sahabah were
imbibing the substance, and trafficking in it. Alcohol was both a source
of pleasure and livelihood, thus immediate and total abstinence would
have been difficult for the believers.
The word khamr, as is in
the verse in Arabic, denotes covering of something; that is why the
upper part of your hijab is called khimaar, it is from khamr. Like the
Prophet’s saying: khammirul aaniyah, ‘cover your utensils..’ Therefore,
wine is called khamr because it beclouds and covers your mind and
intellect; you will not think, act rationally.
Prepare it with anything - dates, grapes, whatever - once it has that intoxicating effect, it is khamr and haraam.
“Every intoxicating drink is khamr and every intoxicant is unlawful.”
“Every intoxicant is unlawful and if a farq (a means of measurement) of
anything causes intoxication, (even) a handful of it is forbidden.”
Al-Tirmidhi narrated that Anas ibn Maalik said: The Messenger of
Allaah, sallaahu alaihi wa sallam cursed ten with regard to alcohol: 1)
the one who squeezes (the grapes etc, the wine maker), 2) the one for
whom it is squeezed, 3) the one who drinks it, 4) the one who carries
it, 5) the one to whom it is carried, 6) the one who pours it (waiter,
sommelier), 7) the one who sells it and consumes its price, 9) the one
who buys it and 10) the one for whom it is bought.”
Whoever
drinks khamr in this world and dies persisting in that and without
having repented, will not drink it in the Hereafter.
It was narrated from Abu Bakr bin 'Abdur-Rahman bin Al-Harith that his father said:
"I heard 'Uthman, may Allah be pleased with him, say: 'Avoid Khamr for it is the mother of all evils. There was a man among those who came before you who was a devoted worshipper. An immoral woman fell in love with him. She sent her slave girl to him, saying: We are calling you to bear witness. So he set out with her slave girl, and every time he entered a door, she locked it behind him, until he reached a beautiful woman who has with her a boy and a vessel of wine. She said: 'By Allah, I did not call you to bear witness, rather I called you to have intercourse with me, or to drink a cup of this wine, or to kill this boy.' He said: 'Pour me a cup of this wine.' So she poured him a cup. He said: 'Give me more.' And soon he had intercourse with her and killed the boy. So avoid Khamr, for by Allah faith and addiction to Khamr cannot coexist but one of them will soon expel the other." Alcoholism and imaan will not reside in the heart of man; one of the two will expel the other. It is the mother of all evils that dulls the senses and befogs the mind.
"I heard 'Uthman, may Allah be pleased with him, say: 'Avoid Khamr for it is the mother of all evils. There was a man among those who came before you who was a devoted worshipper. An immoral woman fell in love with him. She sent her slave girl to him, saying: We are calling you to bear witness. So he set out with her slave girl, and every time he entered a door, she locked it behind him, until he reached a beautiful woman who has with her a boy and a vessel of wine. She said: 'By Allah, I did not call you to bear witness, rather I called you to have intercourse with me, or to drink a cup of this wine, or to kill this boy.' He said: 'Pour me a cup of this wine.' So she poured him a cup. He said: 'Give me more.' And soon he had intercourse with her and killed the boy. So avoid Khamr, for by Allah faith and addiction to Khamr cannot coexist but one of them will soon expel the other." Alcoholism and imaan will not reside in the heart of man; one of the two will expel the other. It is the mother of all evils that dulls the senses and befogs the mind.
The Messenger of Allah, sallaahu alaihi wa sallam has warned his Ummah
that people will come at the end of times, calling khamr by names that
hide its true nature, calling khamr by different names and legalising
it: booze, brew, cold one, juice, hard stuff, sauce, moonshine, draft,
liquid bread, tummy buster, liquid courage, and so on.
Abu Moosa said: The Prophet, sallaahu alaihi wa sallam sent Mu’aadh ibn
Jabal and me to Yemen, and I said: O Messenger of Allaah, there is a
drink that is made in our land and is called al-mizr, which is made from
barley, and another drink called al-bit’, which is made from honey. He
said: “Every intoxicant is haraam.”
Ibn ‘Umar (may Allaah be
pleased with him) said: I heard ‘Umar (may Allaah be pleased with him)
say from the minbar of the Messenger of Allaah , sallaahu alaihi wa
sallam: “O people, the prohibition of khamr was revealed when khamr was
made from five things: grapes, dates, honey, wheat, and barley. Khamr is
whatever befogs the mind.”
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may
Allaah have mercy on him) said: Everything that takes away one's senses
is haraam, even if it does not result in drunkenness or intoxication. If
it takes away the senses it is haraam according to the consensus of the
Muslims.
Whatever the case, it comes under the heading of that
which Allaah has forbidden of khamr and intoxicants, whether by name or
by nature. Abu Moosa al-Ash’ari (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: O
Messenger of Allaah, advise us with regard to two drinks that we used
to make in Yemen: al-bit’ which is made of honey that is soaked until it
becomes strong, and al-mizr which is made of wheat and barley until it
becomes strong. The Messenger of Allaah , sallaahu alaihi wa sallam had
been given the gift of comprehensive and concise speech and he said:
“Every intoxicant is haraam.”
Whether it is smoked, swallowed,
inhaled, chewed, or injected we are speaking about one and the same
thing - intoxicants, liquor, high inducing substances - which are all
haraam.
Drugs have even worse effect on the addict than alcohol:
Smart Pills, Wicked X, Cocaine, Nose Candy, Cough Medicine, Orange
Crush, Crystal Meth (the movie Breaking Bad exposed the effects of
drugs on our children and the huge money the illicit trade elicits),
Glass, Ecstasy, Lover’s Speed, Heroin, Dragon, Laughing Gas, Cat Valium,
LSD, Superman, Marijuana, Grass, Bombay Blue, School Bus, Love Boat,
and Angel Dust.
Jeffrey Archer tells us in his Prison Diaries,
relating what he learnt as a prisoner from other convicts, that one shot
at ninety percent of these drugs, makes you an addict for the rest of
your life, unless where you undergo rigorous rehabilitation; that drug
addiction does not mean only less smart people are victims, you can be
the smartest among your equals but still find yourself entrapped in the
web of drug addiction.
Parents should look out for the early
signs of drug addiction in their children, not least those studying
outside this country, and be able to be a Sherlock Holmes in detecting
inner meanings of what on the surface is harmless. If a teenager sends a
text or converses with a friend and says ‘I need brown sugar’, don’t be
deceived into thinking that they mean a baking supply. They may be
speaking about heroin. That is part of what we are studying today:
people calling intoxicants and drugs with strange names and trying to
show that it is cool to imbibe such substances.
We need to save
these children from themselves. Drugs destroy the addict completely.
That is why some countries execute drug traffickers because making drugs
available actually kills the people when they become addicts, useless
to themselves, useless to their parents who have suffered greatly in
educating them, and they have become useless even their country.
Friday, April 13, 2018
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