Silaaj

I couldnt agree with you more.
Namaz is perhaps the only form of worship for a muslim which does not have an alternate. As a muslim, you have to pray 5 times a day, whether you are sick, travelling, on your death bed, healthy, rich or poor. All other forms of worship have a 'way out' if you want to call it that, in the form of kaffara or fidya, or tauba.

People jump out of their seats if they see someone eating during ramadan, or drinking, yet they dont have a problem with people backbiting, or missing namaz.

picoico

Drinking always struck me as particularily bad.

One may miss prayers because of the simple passing of time, being lazy, whatever. One may have to pay interest on a mortgage, becuase the alternative is a severe hardhsip. Or again, it's so intertwined with the economies of where we live, it's a daunting task to avoid it. Many excuses, which at the very least makes one pause...even if they are just excuses.

Drinking, on the other hand, is deliberate. One really has to go out of their way to have a drink...there is a compulsion in it, clearly.

psyah

Exactly ... brother

Also, drinking habits could lead to people missing prayers and taking out loans to support the habit thus paying interest. It could lead to lies and sultry behaviour too.

mercenary2k

^^ what about smoking?

Hashmat Usmani

psyah

Peace Hasmat Usmani

The categorisation of makrooh was established before there was enough data on the harms of tobacco products.

It most certainly is harmful, addictive and affects society such as passive smoking and bad smells. There is no reason why it should not be haram with the knowledge we have today. Imam bin Baaz also wrote a fatwa declaring smoking as haram.

Pure nicotine is lethal. It is higher in toxicity than cocaine. Nicotine poisoning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The LD50 of nicotine is 50 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for mice. 0.5-1.0 mg/kg can be a lethal dosage for adult humans.Nicotine therefore has a high toxicity in comparison to many other alkaloids such as cocaine, which in mice has an LD50 of 95.1 mg/kg. It is impossible however to overdose on nicotine through smoking alone (though a person can overdose on nicotine through a combination of nicotine patches, nicotine gum, and/or tobacco smoking at the same time.) Spilling an extremely high concentration of nicotine onto the skin can result in intoxication or even death since nicotine readily passes into the bloodstream from dermal contact.[

Hashmat Usmani

diwana

I think we have mixed the whole thread with so many acts bundled together.

Why talk about prayer, interest, smoking or whatever.

The question was about drinking alcohol.

Some people drink alcohol and give all kind of excuses or find all kind of excuses.

Alcohol was once allowed in the days of Islam.

1- One verse suggest it has some benefits but more harm.

2- It was not allowed during prayer or salat. Based upon the event where someone recited Quranic verse during prayer wrong.

3- Final ruling, it was completely prohibited. When this happened, muslims of those days discarded all the alcoholic beverages.

Now if someone wants to find an excuse, then so be it.

It's their act and avoiding those people if nothing else is possible is the best way to adopt.

Praying for these people or bringing them to other good places like Masjid are also great options without directly confronting or humiliating.

Maybe with good company they would reconsider their acts.

And by the way, these people do know its not allowed in Islam. Its their 'defense mechanism' of their mind which makes them say these excuses..like "we are not harming anyone". Its like a child would say while watching TV and not doing home work!


About medical harm or benefits?

In small amount daily-a glass of wine after dinner (without religion being a factor), alcohol has not been found to be harmful for 'physical' health. The first Quranic verse message I wrote has to be true! Small amount of alcohol increases good cholesterol (HDL) in blood. Not enough reason to start drinking.

diwana

And I just noticed....aside from the topic of thread..Usmani Bhai has about 1300 posts in 39 days....about 33 posts a day!!? Great!

Posting while in shower too?? Just kidding bhai sahab. :-)

Hashmat Usmani

diwana

Reprimanded? Why? Keep it up. It shows your love with GS, that's all. I will need to hire someone to post for me to get those numbers.. :-)

Hashmat Usmani

Silaaj

So in essence, islam is more about social conformity, than the actual severity of the sin?

A missed prayer, or paying of interest or adultery are all sins that can be done behind closed doors, and noone would perhaps 'see' you miss a namaz. But drinking is often a social issue, where people can see you gulp a drink. I guess its the social stigma that makes people dislike it more than anything else?
Its sad that even Islam has been narrowed down to a show and tell level.

diwana

Nope, too good for me..You would ruin my reputation! ;-)

diwana

Where did you get these ideas? You are assuming too much here.

No one sees you when you drink alcohol alone in the house too.

Zapp

Honest question here. I thought anything you intentionally do to harm your body is haraam. Smoking intentionally harms your body. So therefore it is haraam isn't it?

picoico

Sure, smoke/drugs too, although smoking may not be "intoxicating" as we typically use the term....

psyah

Hashmat Usmani

I can see you have a lot of passion on this. Smoking is declared haram, it depends how you apply the affects of smoking on your health and the damage to society that will enable you to find the appropriate hadith where it fits.

The rule of haram and halal that you describe above is an oversimplification by the way. There is another rule in that ... the act that is required for a fard to be undertaken then itself becomes a fard. Also, the act that causes a haram to be undertaken is also haram.

As I said the ruling for smoking to be makrooh is out-dated based on up-to-date information on smoking and it's dangers. In fact there have been a variety of fatwas prohibiting smoking or tobacco in general.

Tobacco fatwa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is a balanced article showing both sides of the argument ... which is better you decide?

Tobacco Use, Halal or Haram? Paan and Tobacco Cessation Digest

And here is a detailed article

Smoking: A Social Poison

Aside to all this in the UK it is now illegal to smoke in public confined spaces and by law the warning on the packets must read ...

"Smoking Kills"

I am not making haram halal nor halal haram ... but we should be careful not to over simplify the rules just taking the basic meaning of:

"everything is halal except when specifically said to be haram" is a dangerous statement to make to those people who are literalistic.

For example: Hitting ones own father on the head with a slipper is halal? But you and I know that it is not because that act is disrespect of ones parents so there is some categorisation work that has to be done before we start defining the halal/haram status.

It is also not right to push everything in to makrooh and mustahab either in the absence of explicit mentions in Qur'an and hadith. There is a a whole different set of conditions for those classifications.

Peace bro

Hashmat Usmani

EyEsOnSkY