Drinks: wine and intoxicants

A staged prohibition

The prohibition of khamr came in three stages: first the mention of harm and profit (al-Baqara 219), then the ban approaching prayer (an-Nisa 43), then the total prohibition:

O you who believe! Wine, gambling, stone altars and divining arrows are a defilement of Satan's work: avoid them, that you may prosper. Satan wants to stir enmity and hatred among you through wine and gambling, and to turn you from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer.sura al-Ma'ida 90-91

The consensus is reported plainly: an-Nawawi writes that Muslims agree on the prohibition of drinking khamr, and Ibn Qudama that the Prophet's reports on this prohibition, taken together, reach the degree of tawatur.

Khamr and intoxicating drinks

Every intoxicant is khamr, and every intoxicant is forbidden.al-Bukhari 5253; Muslim 2003

The schools define khamr: fermented grape juice. The Hanafis count four drinks forbidden by the text: khamr; grape juice reduced by two-thirds (tila' and badhiq); fermented raw date juice (sakar); boiled raisin infusion. Properly cooked date nabidh remains lawful for one who drinks it to strengthen himself, without intoxication or amusement; nabidh of honey, figs, wheat, barley or corn is lawful even uncooked: "khamr comes from these two trees: the palm and the vine" (Muslim 1985). Per Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf, one who gets drunk on lawful nabidh receives no punishment; Muhammad ibn al-Hasan has him flogged in case of drunkenness.

The majority (Malikis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis), on the view of most of the Companions, goes further: any drink that intoxicates in a large amount makes its small amount forbidden, and it follows khamr in prohibition, impurity and punishment, raw or cooked.

The drinker's punishment

It applies to any amount, drunk or not: "whoever drinks khamr, flog him; if he repeats, flog him; if he repeats, flog him; if he repeats, kill him" (Abu Dawud 4484, at-Tirmidhi 1444, an-Nasai 5661). The report of execution at the fourth time is judged abrogated: the Prophet flogged a drinker four times without killing him (a weak report, Abu Dawud 4485). The punishment's amount was fixed by 'Umar: eighty lashes for the free man, forty for the slave, on Anas's hadith (Muslim 1706, Abu Dawud 4479, at-Tirmidhi 1443).

Non-intoxicating drinks

• milk, water, juices and unfermented grape syrup (dibs): lawful;
• non-intoxicating nabidh: lawful per the Hanafis under the cited conditions, forbidden by the majority from the small amount if a large dose intoxicates.

Practical note

Contemporary academies place modern alcohols, including industrial spirits, under the prohibition without discussion: the classical debate bore only on nabidh, not on these drinks.