Islamic Fiqh > Penalties (hudud) > Khamr and discretionary penalties (ta'zir) > The categories of drinks and their status
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Updated on 27 September 2026 at 3:52 AM
This chapter gathers the sheets on the other drinks and intoxicating substances: the infusion (nabidh) and its three-day limit, the solid narcotics such as nutmeg, hemp and opium, medical treatment by forbidden things, the gradual withdrawal from addictions, the mixing of two fruits in an infusion, the cooking of grape juice, and then the intoxicating drinks in the broad sense.
The infusion, nabidh, is what one throws into water, dates, raisins or their like, to sweeten the water and remove its brackishness. It is lawful as long as it has not boiled and three days have not passed over it; and it is conceivable that drinking it beyond three days, if it has not boiled, is merely disliked and not forbidden: Ahmad did not explicitly declare its prohibition, he said: I dislike it; this because the Prophet did not drink it beyond three days. Abu al-Khattab specifies that Ahmad's statement on this is carried on the juice which, in the usual case, ferments within three days.
There is thus no harm in this infusion as long as it has not boiled and three days have not passed over it, by what was reported from Ibn Abbas, and by the word of Abu Hurayra:
I knew that the Messenger of Allah was fasting; I prepared his breaking of the fast with an infusion I had made in a tub, then I brought it to him and it was agitated; he said: pour it against this wall, it is the drink of the one who does not believe in Allah and the Last Day.
reported by Abu Dawud (3716), an-Nasa'i (5610) and Ibn Majah (3409), authentic hadith
For when the drink reaches that state it becomes intoxicating, and every intoxicant is forbidden.
Nutmeg has been known since antiquity: its fruits served as a spice giving food a pure smell, and the ancient Egyptians used it as a remedy for stomach pains and for expelling wind. Its tree is about ten meters tall, evergreen, with fruits like pears that become a hard shell at maturity; it is grown in the equatorial regions, in India, Indonesia and Ceylan. Its effect resembles that of hemp: excessive doses cause ringing in the ears, severe constipation, a blockage of urination, anxiety, tension and a depression of the central nervous system that can lead to death.
The scholars differed over its ruling and that of hemp and opium, according to two positions. The first: Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Hajar al-Haytami declared their absolute prohibition, of the little as well as the much; Ibn Hajar reported it from the later Malikis and Shafi'is, and counted these substances among the major sins: "the seventieth enormity after the hundred: eating the pure intoxicant, like hemp, opium, shaykaran (benj), as well as anbar, saffron and nutmeg". All of these things intoxicate, intoxication there meaning the darkening of the intellect, without the violent euphoria specific to the liquid intoxicant; this does not contradict their being called narcotics. Everything that removes the intellect therefore incurs the warning pronounced against the wine drinker, the two sharing the removal of the intellect whose survival the Law intends: it is the instrument of understanding Allah and His messenger, that by which man is distinguished from the animal, and the means of preferring perfections to deficiencies. Ibn Taymiyya composed on this a book, "Tahdhir al-thiqat 'an isti'mal al-kufta wa-l-qat" (Warning to the reliable men on the kufta and the qat), when the people of Yemen disputed and sent him three treatises, two for the prohibition and one for lawfulness; he warned there without formally ruling on the prohibition, and developed the discussion on the rest of the intoxicants and solid narcotics.
The basis of the prohibition of all this is what Ahmad reported in his Musnad and Abu Dawud in his Sunan: "the Messenger of Allah forbade every intoxicant and every stupefacient". The scholars explain: the mufttir is whatever causes languor and numbness in the limbs, and all these substances intoxicate, drug and stupefy. The hadith is judged weak, reported by Abu Dawud (3686) and Ahmad (26676). Al-Qarafi and Ibn Taymiyya reported the unanimity on the prohibition of hemp: whoever deems it lawful becomes an unbeliever. The four imams did not speak of it because in their time the thing did not exist: it appeared at the end of the sixth century and the beginning of the seventh, when the Tatar state arose. Al-Mawardi transmitted a saying that the plant producing violent euphoria calls for the hadd; as for what the sheet mentions about nutmeg, it is the opinion Ibn Taymiyya issued long ago, when a dispute over it opposed the people of the Two Sanctuaries and Egypt, and his search of the traditions brought him what the others had not found.
The sheet raises the question: did one of the imams or their imitators declare nutmeg forbidden? And may the students of knowledge of today issue fatwas of prohibition without knowing its traditions? It answers with the words of the mujtahid imam Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Daqiq al-Id: nutmeg is intoxicating; the later Shafi'is and Malikis reported it from him and relied on it. Ibn al-Imad went further, making hemp the measure against which nutmeg is gauged: al-Qarafi had distinguished in the intoxication of hemp the green leaf, without intoxication, and the roasted hemp that intoxicates; the answer is that there is no difference, hemp being joined to nutmeg, saffron, anbar, opium and benj among the intoxicants and narcotics, as Ibn al-Qastallani mentioned in Tikrima al-Ma'isha. The Malikis and Shafi'is joined the Hanbalis on its intoxication, among them Ibn Taymiyya and those of his madhhab who followed him; it is also the matter of the statement of some Hanafi imams: in the Fatawa of al-Marghinani, the intoxicant of benj and the milk of wild mares is forbidden without a hadd for its drinker, a statement of Abu Hafs taken up by Shams al-A'imma al-Sarakhsi. It follows that nutmeg is forbidden with the four imams, explicitly with the Shafi'is, Malikis and Hanbalis, and by implication with the Hanafis, for it is intoxicating or narcotic; the basis is hemp, which is measured against it. Abu Ishaq in the Tadhkira, al-Nawawi in the Sharh al-Muhadhdhab and Ibn Daqiq al-Id declare it intoxicating.
Al-Zarkashi: no disagreement is known among us on it, and drunkenness may enter their hadd: it is the one whose ordered speech becomes confused and whose hidden secret is exposed, or the one who no longer tells the sky from the earth; then he reports al-Qarafi's contrary view, who denied the intoxication and affirmed only the corruption, and refutes him at length, point by point. The scholars of plants among the physicians declared its intoxication, and they are the reference in this, as are Ibn Taymiyya and those who followed him among the later ones of his madhhab. The truth lies between the two unqualified statements, that of intoxication and that of corruption: intoxication is said of the general covering of the intellect, the broader statement, or of that covering together with euphoria, the more specific one. On the first statement the intoxicant and the narcotic overlap totally: every narcotic intoxicates, but not every intoxicant is narcotic; calling hemp and nutmeg "intoxicating" therefore aims at the narcotic effect, and the one who denied it aimed at the specific meaning. In truth the drunkenness of the wine kind produces euphoria, animation, joy, excitement and fever, while the drunkenness of the hemp and nutmeg kind produces their opposites: numbing of the body, languor, long silence, sleep and lack of drive. By these words is refuted what al-Zarkashi objected to al-Qarafi, that some gulp of wine would produce the effects of hemp and some bite of hemp the effects of wine: what depends on the usual case is not affected by exceptions, as the shortening of the prayer tied to travel remains valid even without hardship in many individual cases. There is thus no real disagreement between the one who says of hemp "intoxicating" and the one who says "narcotic and corrupting": the corruption meant is the one just described, as al-Zarkashi himself grants when saying that the expression also covers madness and fainting, both of which corrupt the intellect. The statement of the jurist (Ibn Daqiq al-Id) is therefore sound: nutmeg is narcotic; whoever deems it lawful or denies its intoxication and drugging incurs a severe deterrent ta'zir; and Ibn Taymiyya, approved in this by his school, goes as far as: whoever deems hemp lawful is an unbeliever. Let man beware of falling into this trap in the eyes of the imams of this revered madhhab.
Amazing is the recklessness of the one who risks nutmeg despite the harms and the sin described, while all its aims are obtained without it: Ibn Sina, prince of physicians, declares in his Canon that its weight or half its weight of spikenard (sunbul) produces the same effects; whoever used it in a certain measure may use spikenard of equal weight or half, obtaining all his aims, preserved from sin and from the punishment of Allah, with as only remainder some harm to the lungs that some physicians mention and from which the spikenard is free. Thus ends Ibn Taymiyya's answer on nutmeg, an answer he says is rich in precious things.
Ibn Taymiyya adds: the intoxicating hemp is forbidden, and whoever deems its drunkenness lawful is an unbeliever; in the soundest view of the scholars it is impure like wine, and the hadd is due in it. Some jurists suspended the hadd thinking it covers the intellect like benj and calling only for the ta'zir; the sound view is that it intoxicates, unlike benj and nutmeg, by transformation like wine. Whoever thinks hemp does not intoxicate but merely removes the intellect without pleasure does not know its reality: without the pleasure it gives, no one would take it, unlike benj and its like. The Lawgiver was content, for the forbidden things souls do not crave such as blood, with the natural deterrent and placed on it the punishment of ta'zir; but for what souls crave He placed the legal deterrent, which is the hadd: hemp is of this kind.
Asked about what is due on the eater of hemp, he answers: this solid hemp is forbidden, whether one becomes drunk on it or not; the drunkenness it gives is forbidden by the agreement of the Muslims. Whoever deems it lawful is invited to repent, otherwise he is killed as an apostate, without prayer over him nor burial in the graveyards of the Muslims. Graver still the one who believes it an act of devotion, saying: "it is the morsel of remembrance and thought, it wakes the sleeping resolve toward the noblest places, it helps on the road": this belongs to the religion of the Christians who draw near through wine, and of the one who holds indecencies to be acts of devotion, by the word of Allah:
And when they commit an indecency they say: we found our fathers upon it and Allah commanded us with it. Say: Allah does not command indecency. Would you say about Allah what you do not know?
Surah al-A'raf 28
Everything that removes the intellect is forbidden, even without euphoria or joy, for the removal of the intellect is forbidden by the agreement of the Muslims. Taking benj that does not intoxicate and does not remove the intellect calls for the ta'zir; the verifying jurists know that hemp intoxicates and that only the wicked take it for the euphoria and joy: it joins in this the intoxicating drink; wine produces movement and quarrelsomeness, and this one languor and abjection; yet it involves the corruption of temperament and intellect, the opening of the door of desire and what leads to effeminacy, which is worse than the intoxicating drink. It appeared among the people only with the coming of the Tatars.
Asked next about the one who claims that eating it is lawful and permitted, he answers: eating it is forbidden, and it is among the filthiest of the forbidden things, little or much; the much that intoxicates is forbidden by unanimity; whoever deems it lawful is an unbeliever invited to repent, otherwise killed as a renegade apostate, without washing, without prayer and without burial among the Muslims; the apostate's lot is worse than that of the Jew and the Christian, whether he deems it lawful for the common people or for the elite claiming it is the morsel of thought and remembrance.
The second position, that of the majority of jurists, Hanafis, Malikis and many Shafi'is like al-Ramli and others, is that the little is lawful and the much forbidden. Al-Haskafi the Hanafi writes: eating benj and hemp, which is the leaf of hemp, as well as opium, is forbidden, because it corrupts the intellect and turns away from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer, but short of the gravity of the prohibition of wine: whoever eats of it, even if he becomes drunk, undergoes no hadd, but a ta'zir below the hadd. Al-Haddadi the Hanafi confirms it: eating benj, hemp and opium is not permitted; all of it is forbidden because it corrupts the intellect until man loses all restraint there, and turns away from remembrance and prayer; its prohibition is less than that of wine: like the one who drinks urine or eats excrement, forbidden without a hadd, with a ta'zir below the hadd.
Nutmeg is likewise forbidden, but short of the gravity of hemp, said the author (al-Haskafi). It was reported from al-Jami' and others that whoever deems benj and hemp lawful is a heretical innovator; Najm al-Din al-Zahidi goes as far as: he becomes an unbeliever and his killing is lawful. Ibn Abidin specifies that benj is called shaykaran in the Arabic tongue: it causes headache and sleep and confuses the intellect, as the Tadhkira of Dawud says; the Qamus adds that the red is the filthiest, then the black, the white the mildest. Al-Quhistani distinguishes two kinds of hemp: one forbidden because it removes the intellect, and the fatwa is upon it; the other lawful like opium, for although it confuses the intellect it does not remove it; upon this is carried the lawfulness reported from the Hidaya and others. Ibn Abidin objects: this is not apparent, for what confuses the intellect is likewise forbidden without doubt; the sound view is that the author of the Hidaya meant the lawfulness of the little for treatment and its like, and that the one who declared the prohibition meant the intoxicating measure; proof in Ghayat al-Bayan: eating a little of saqmunya and benj is lawful for treatment, and what exceeds that, if it kills or removes the intellect, is forbidden.
It follows, as the sheet summarizes: the use of the much that intoxicates is forbidden absolutely; the little, if taken for amusement, is forbidden, and if it makes drunk, the divorce falls, because the start of the use was prohibited; if taken for treatment and drunkenness results from it, nothing falls. Al-Bahr details: the one whose intellect disappears through benj or opium sees his divorce fall if he takes them for the intended play and amusement, not for treatment; al-Nahr holds this distinction to be the truth. There remained a question the sheet notes: the one who became used to eating a solid whose little is lawful and much intoxicating, to the point of eating the intoxicating measure without being intoxicated: does his use become forbidden because it intoxicates others or because it intoxicated him before the habit, or does it remain lawful because the thing is pure and lawful and the cause of the prohibition, the intoxication, no longer occurs after the habit? The Shafi'is declared that the criterion is what removes the intellect for most people, without habituation.
Ibn al-Baytar reports of the Indian hemp called hashish that it intoxicates strongly at the dose of a dirham, that the excess leads to madness, that people have lost their minds over it and that it has sometimes killed. Ibn Hajar reported from some scholars a hundred and twenty religious and worldly harms in its consumption, and from Ibn Taymiyya that whoever deems it lawful is an unbeliever. Opium is the juice of the poppy: taken continuously it produces melancholy and removes the two appetites, it kills at the dose of two dirhams; beyond four days it creates a dependence such that quitting leads to death, for it perforates the membranes with a perforation nothing else can close. On the same model, the sheet mentions the cotton flower, whose euphoric effect reaches intoxication, and burs, made of benj, opium and more: its addiction corrupts body and intellect, removes the two appetites, spoils the complexion, weakens the forces and exhausts, and the harms are seen today. Al-Haskafi reports that several Shafi'i scholars declared nutmeg forbidden: Ibn Hajar residing in Mecca in his fatwas, Kamal al-Din ibn Abi Sharif in a treatise he composed on it, and al-Aqsara'i, who says its prohibition is less than that of hemp. Al-Tahtawi reports that it is forbidden short of the gravity of hemp, and that Ibn Hajar al-Makki declared its prohibition by the consensus of the four imams; the sheet sees this consensus perhaps carried on the state of drunkenness, the little of every intoxicant other than wine not being forbidden for the imam (Abu Hanifa), second condition: that he does not become drunk.
Al-Hattab the Maliki reports from al-Tawdih the useful distinction: the muskir removes the intellect without the senses, with euphoria and joy; the mufsid removes the intellect without the senses, without euphoria or joy, like the honey of baladur; the murqi'd removes the intellect and the senses, like shaykaran. From intoxication three rulings follow that the last two do not know: the hadd, impurity and the prohibition of the little. The later scholars held two positions on hemp, while agreeing on the prohibition of eating it: is it of the intoxicating kind or of the corrupting kind? Al-Qarafi holds the narcotic: "I did not see them inclined to fighting and aid, but bearing abjection and dejection, and tears sometimes come upon them". His shaykh Abdullah al-Manufi held the intoxicating: we saw those who take it sell their property for it, and this comes from the joy it gives: no one is seen selling his house to pay for a drunken fit. Al-Qarafi's wording on hemp is "corrupting, not intoxicating", and by this distinction is removed the objection brought against his words "except the intoxicant", which he was reproached for covering the plants that remove the intellect like benj and shaykaran: these are corrupting or sleep-inducing, not intoxicating.
Al-Burzali reported three positions from al-Qarafi on hemp; the third distinguishes roasted hemp, impure and subject to the hadd, from hemp before roasting, without hadd nor impurity; in the final distinction he holds that there is no hadd, but a deterrent ta'zir against the confusion, and that the prayer is not nullified by carrying it. Opium is of the corrupting kind: praying with opium or benj does not nullify the prayer by consensus, like the other corrupters, for example taking of opium, benj or shaykaran a dose that does not reach the intellect nor the senses. On this basis it is permitted to the one afflicted with opium who fears death from quitting to use the dose that affects neither his intellect nor his senses, while striving to diminish it and cut it with all his strength, and it is due to him to repent and regret the past.
Branch: Ibn Farhun says of the Indian medicines that if they are eaten for what hemp is eaten for, their consumption is forbidden; if eaten for digestion and other benefits, they are not forbidden, and of them only what corrupts the intellect is forbidden. He mentions before that nutmeg, much saffron, benj and shaykaran are of the corrupting kind: their little is lawful and their ruling is purity. Some of our imams permitted eating a little nutmeg to warm the head, others conditioned it on mixing with medicines; the sound view is the generality of the prohibition.
Another branch: the sale of these things, opium, benj, nutmeg and their like: the sheet finds no explicit text; the apparent is to say, as Ibn Rushd on what is forbidden to consume: if it has a benefit other than consumption, its sale is permitted to the one who uses it otherwise, with assurance that he will not sell it to whoever would eat it. Likewise for these substances and the other ointments that remove the intellect: their sale is permitted to the one who does not take the measure that removes the intellect, with assurance that he will not sell to the one who does.
Muhammad Aliysh summarizes: the mufsid, also called mukaddir, removes the intellect alone, without euphoria or joy: hemp according to the soundest choice, opium, burs and nutmeg; the murqi'd removes the intellect and the senses: benj and datura, both pure, entering the exception; the use of the little that does not remove the intellect is lawful, the much that removes it is forbidden and calls for a correction that deters the user, by the blow or otherwise. The haashiya I'anat al-Talibin confirms that benj, hemp, opium, nutmeg, anbar and saffron are all pure because solid, even though taking the intoxicating measure of them is forbidden. Al-Ramli, asked about eating nutmeg, answers: yes, it is permitted if little, and forbidden if much. Muhammad Shams al-Haqq al-Azimabadi concludes: nutmeg, bispasa and Indian aloeswood bear no drunkenness either, but stupefaction for some and drugging for others; no doubt whatever the much of it intoxicates, its little is forbidden, alone or mixed, whether the mixture keeps the power to intoxicate or not; these six substances are not at all of the kind of the intoxicants, and some are not even, upon verification, of the kind of the stupefacients nor of the narcotics.
A preliminary point from the sheet: Ahmad does not raise his hand with excess in any of the hudud, that is, he does not strike with excess: the aim is discipline, not killing. The Hanbalis according to the madhhab add that the imam or his deputy, if he sees the striking inflicted on the drinker of an intoxicant with palm branches or shoes, has the right to use the hands as well, by the hadith of Abu Hurayra already cited.
The jurists differed over treatment by wine: is it permitted? The majority of jurists, Hanafis, Malikis, Shafi'is in the soundest view and Hanbalis, forbid it, by what Muslim reported from alqama ibn Wa'il from his father Wa'il al-Hadrami:
Tariq ibn Suwayd al-Ju'fi asked the Prophet about wine, and he forbade it to him or made it disliked. He said: I only make it as a medicine. He answered: it is not a medicine, it is a disease.
reported by Muslim (1984)
And from Asim from Abu Wa'il: one of ours fell ill and drunkenness was prescribed to him; we went to Abdullah and asked him; he said: "Allah did not place your cure in what He forbade you" (reported by at-Tahawi in Sharh Ma'ani al-Athar, 1/108, and al-Hakim in al-Mustadrak, 7509). Wine is forbidden in itself like pork; necessity is not repelled by it; if it holds a benefit through the body it holds a harm through the religion, and Allah forbade it while knowing it. The Malikis explicitly declare it not permitted even when fearing death.
The Shafi'is in the soundest view say: the prohibition holds as long as he finds no equivalent, even if the matter does not reach perdition; if he is cured by it and finds nothing else, drinking it becomes obligatory as eating carrion becomes obligatory for the compelled. Al-Damiri reports that the imam transmitted it from the consensus of his companions. The one treated by wine incurs no hadd with the Shafi'is, and the hadd is due on him with the Malikis and the Hanbalis.
Al-Sarakhsi: every forbidden drink does not become lawful for treatment, to the point that Muhammad reports that a man came asking permission to drink wine for treatment and that he answered him: "if you have yellow bile, take sugar water; if you have moisture, take honey water: it is more beneficial for you". This indicates that necessity is not realized from the forbidden: of the same kind there is found something lawful that reaches the aim. The Prophet's words: "Allah did not place cure in what is defiled" do not negate the cure in itself, for it may be witnessed and the report of the Law may not be contradicted; they mean that He did not designate a defiled thing as cure where nothing lawful is found that does its work or is stronger than it.
With the Hanafi jurists, treatment by the forbidden is forbidden only if one does not know there is cure in it; if one knows it cures and he has no other medicine, treatment by it is permitted: Muhammad reports in the chapter of drinks that whoever fears thirst upon himself and finds wine drinks what quenches him and repels his thirst, without drinking beyond sufficiency. Ibn Mas'ud's words may mean that he spoke of a disease for which a remedy other than the forbidden was known, so that the lawful suffices; they may also mean that the prohibition is lifted at need, so that the cure is not in the forbidden but in the lawful.
If a sick man is prescribed wine by a physician, he examines: if he knows with certainty that it cures, drinking it is permitted to him, and in another wording it is not permitted to him. Ibn Nujaym reports the disagreement of their shaykhs: in al-Nihaya from al-Dhakhira, treatment by the forbidden is permitted if one knows it cures and no other medicine is known; in the Fatawa of Qadi Khan, citing Nasr ibn Salam, the words "Allah did not place your cure in what He forbade you" were said only of things in which there is no cure; if there is cure in it, there is no harm, see the one pressed by thirst for whom drinking wine is permitted by necessity. The author of the Hidaya holds the same logic in the matter of assimilation: the one whose nose bleeds may write the Fatiha with his blood on his forehead and nose for treatment, even with urine if he knows it cures, without it being reported; for the prohibition falls away in treatment, see the one pressed by thirst for whom drinking wine is permitted and the starving for whom eating carrion is permitted. The Durr al-Mukhtar: they differed over treatment by the forbidden; the apparent of the madhhab is prohibition, as in the question of suckling, but the author reports from al-Hawi that it is said permission is granted when the cure is known and no other medicine is known, as permission was granted for wine to the one pressed by thirst, and upon this is the fatwa.
Ibn Abidin details the question: the author of al-Nihaya required knowledge, which the one who required after him the cure does not contradict; his father says in Sharh al-Durar that the words "no treatment by the forbidden" are carried on the presumed, lawfulness with certainty being agreed, as declared in al-Musaffa. He adds: this is apparent and agrees with what preceded, but the physicians' statements yield no certainty; experiment yields preponderance, unless knowledge means preponderance, which is common in their speech. The Hawi al-Qudsi specifies the case of the man whose nose bleeds without stopping until death is feared and who knows that writing the Fatiha or the Ikhlas with that blood on his forehead stops the flow: permission is not granted to him, or it is granted to him as it was granted for wine to the one pressed by thirst and carrion to the starving, and that is the fatwa; the mention "without another medicine known" is explicit in al-Nihaya and implicit in al-Hawi through its comparison with wine and carrion, lawful where nothing replaces them. Al-Hamawi reports that pork is not lawful for treatment even if it becomes necessary. Finally, the Hanafis in one wording, and the Shafi'is against the soundest view, go as far as permitting wine as treatment, as drinking urine, blood and the other impurities is permitted for treatment.
The sheet first specifies that some of these substances belong, for some, to the stupefacients, and for others to the merely harmful things: their little is not forbidden, alone or mixed with food and medicines. But eating the excessive measure that stupefies is not permitted: the Prophet forbade every stupefacient, without saying that everything the much of it stupefies has its little forbidden; the prohibition bears on the stupefaction, not on the substance itself, and the little that does not stupefy is lawful. Ibn al-Qayyim adds: treatment by intercourse is not permitted by the Law in any way; treatment by embrace and kiss, if the cure is verified by it, resembles treatment by wine for those who permit it, and it is even lighter: drinking wine is among the major sins, this deed is among the minor sins.
The jurists of the four madhhabs declared that whoever is afflicted with opium and narcotics to the point that leaving them destroys him has the right to leave them by degrees, not all at once. Ibn Abidin reports the conclusion of Ibn Hajar al-Makki, asked about the one who dies without his dose of opium: if he knows that with certainty, eating it is permitted to him, rather it is due to him, by the necessity of preserving his life, like carrion for the compelled; he must proceed by gradual reduction until the stomach's craving ceases without his perceiving it; otherwise he is a sinner and a transgressor. Al-Ramli confirms: our rules do not contradict him.
Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, asked the same case, answers: if he knows with certainty, by the physicians or a sound and true experiment, that nothing repels the fear of his loss except opium in the measure he is used to or near it, eating it is permitted to him, rather it is due to him, for he is compelled for the survival of his soul; he is then like carrion for the one compelled to it, and a majority declared it explicitly. Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani indicated a way good to adopt: the user must strive to cut it by gradual reduction, lowering each day what he consumes by the worth of a sesame seed; this reduction never harms him; if he perseveres, in a short time the stomach's craving ceases and forgets it without his perceiving or suffering from it. By this means the removal of the forbidden becomes possible even if taking it has become obligatory: the obligation is incidental and does not contradict the intrinsic prohibition, as the compelled one's taking of carrion remains due to him while keeping its intrinsic prohibition; and what is a means to remove a forbidden thing becomes obligatory. Whoever abandons this gradual withdrawal is disobedient, a sinner and a transgressor, his testimony is rejected, and he has no excuse to persist if it has become due to him in the present state for the survival of his soul.
The sheet then answers those of the afflicted who cling to their habit: it is a true word used for falsehood; for even if what they say is granted, it is due to them to strive to cut it and remove its harm from their bodies, their religions, their intellects and their goods. A knower informed that opium can be cut in seven days with a lawful remedy some physicians composed. A righteous student told that he consumed a great quantity every day, that his condition worsened and his intellect failed, and that he understood it is the greatest disfigurement and the greatest killer: he went to the noble governor, implored Allah with a sad heart, with tears, moans and sincere repentance, prayed Allah to remove the harm of the lack, then drank Zamzam water with the intention of leaving it, and he never returned to it and felt no suffering from its lack at all. He spoke truly: the souls' craving at its lack and the appearance of the signs of harm come only from the impurity of the resolve and the corruption of the inner designs and the lurking hope; whoever resolves sincerely and implores in the sincerity of intention finds no pain in leaving it by the power of Allah.
Al-Hattab confirms it on the Maliki side: it is permitted to the one afflicted with opium who fears death from quitting to use the dose that affects neither his intellect nor his senses, to strive to reduce it and cut it with all his strength, and it is due to him to repent and regret the past.
The jurists differed over the mixing of two kinds accepting infusion, such as dates with raisins, or unripe dates with ripe or fresh dates: is it forbidden, disliked or lawful? The Malikis judge disliked the drinking of an infusion of two mixed fruits, raisins and dates, figs or apricots; the objection takes two forms: either the two are mixed at the infusion itself, crushed or pounded together then soaked and left until the water becomes sweet; or each is infused separately in a vessel, then the two waters are mixed at the time of drinking. The objection occurs where intoxication is possible without having occurred, for example if the infusion lasts a day and a night and rises; if the duration is short, it is lawful; and if intoxication enters it, even by supposition, it is forbidden and impure.
One position among the Malikis carries the prohibition of mixing in absolute terms, even without strength, by what Muslim reported from Jabir ibn Abdullah al-Ansari: "the Prophet forbade mixing raisins and dates, and unripe dates and dates", in one version "he forbade infusing dates and raisins together, and fresh dates and unripe dates together", in another "do not mix fresh dates and unripe dates, nor raisins and dates, in an infusion", and again "he forbade infusing raisins and dates together, and unripe and fresh dates together" (reported by Muslim, 1986). From Abu Sa'id: "the Prophet forbade mixing dates and raisins, and dates and unripe dates" (Muslim, 1987); and: "whoever of you drinks an infusion, let him drink it of raisins alone, of dates alone or of unripe dates alone", and: "the Messenger of Allah forbade us to mix unripe dates with dates, raisins with dates, or raisins with unripe dates" (Muslim, 1987). From Abu Qatada: "do not infuse the green dates and the fresh dates together, nor the raisins and the dates; infuse each of the two separately" (Muslim, 1988).
Two positions exist in the madhhab on the cause: is it a devotional prohibition or one because of intoxication? Ibn Rushd: the apparent of the Muwatta is that the prohibition is devotional, without cause. Ibn al-Arabi: this question, I know no reason for it to this day; if the forbidden is the intoxication, let him mix it and drink it at once; otherwise it is mere obedience. He reports two strange questions: Ibn al-Qasim forbade infusing unripe dates whose tail has begun to soften, and he is right, for it belongs to the mixing of the two; and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Hakam extended the prohibition of mixing in absolute terms, up to applying it to tila, which is a great fossilizing of the words.
The Hanafis see no harm in it: the khalitayn is to combine the water of dates and the water of raisins, fresh dates or unripe dates, and to cook them with the lightest cooking, taking into account the loss of the two thirds, without cooking being a condition. They rely on what Ibn Ziyad reported: Ibn Umar gave me a drink that nearly made me lose my way; I came the next day and spoke to him of it; he said: I added nothing to you but ajwa and raisins (reported by Muhammad ibn al-Hasan in al-Athar, 1001). It is a kind of mixing and it was cooked; for what was reported as forbidden concerns the raw infusion of raisins, and the prohibition reported from the Prophet on combining dates and raisins, raisins and fresh dates, or fresh and unripe dates, is carried on the state of restriction, at the beginning, when the Muslims lived hardship over food, so that no one would combine the two foods leaving his neighbor hungry, each preferring the other over his neighbor; then when Allah spread His favors over His servants, He permitted combining the two blessings.
The Shafi'is and the Hanbalis judge the mixing disliked without being forbidden, like the infusion of dates with raisins or of unripe dates with ripe or fresh dates, by the same hadiths of Jabir, Abu Sa'id and Abu Qatada. Al-Nawawi writes: these hadiths forbid infusing and drinking the mixtures of two fruits, dates and raisins, dates and fresh dates, dates and unripe dates, fresh and unripe dates, or green dates with one of these kinds; our companions and other scholars say: the cause of the dislike is that intoxication comes quickly upon it through mixing, before its taste changes, so the drinker believes it not intoxicating while it is; our madhhab and that of the majority is that this prohibition is a supererogatory dislike, which does not become forbidden as long as it does not intoxicate, and this is what the mass of scholars said. Some Malikis say: it is forbidden. Abu Hanifa, and Abu Yusuf in one narration from him, say: neither dislike nor harm, for what is lawful alone is lawful mixed; the majority reproached them: they contradict the Master of the Law, sound and explicit hadiths forbidding the mixing, which, if not forbidden, is disliked. The companions of Malik differed over whether the prohibition is specific to drinking or covers the rest; the soundest is the generality; and mixing at the infusion, or in a paste and other, poses no problem.
Ibn Qudama: the mixing is disliked, consisting of infusing two things in water, for the Prophet forbade the mixtures. Ahmad said: the mixtures are forbidden; and on the man who soaks raisins, Indian dates and jujubes from morning to evening as medicine: I dislike it, for it is an infusion; let him cook it and drink it on the spot. Abu Dawud reported that the Prophet forbade infusing unripe and fresh dates together, and raisins and dates together, and in one narration: infuse each separately; and from Abu Qatada, a hadith reported by the two shaykhs: he forbade combining dates and green dates, dates and raisins, and that each be infused separately. Al-Qadi Abu Ya'la explains that Ahmad's words "it is forbidden" aim at the state of strength and intoxication; if it does not intoxicate, it is not forbidden, and this is the sound view if Allah wills. The Prophet only forbade this for the cause of the haste toward forbidden intoxication; when the cause does not exist, the prohibition is not established, as he forbade infusing in the vessels mentioned for that cause, then ordered drinking from them as long as real intoxication has not occurred. Proof: what Aisha reported: "we would infuse for the Messenger of Allah a handful of dates and a handful of raisins, pour water over them and infuse until morning; he drank in the evening, then we infused in the evening and he drank in the morning" (reported by Abu Dawud, 3708, and Ibn Majah, 3398, authentic hadith). The infusion duration being short, a day and a night, intoxication is not imagined in it and there is no dislike; had there been dislike, this would not have been done in the house of the Prophet for him. On this basis: no dislike for the short duration, and dislike for the duration that may lead to intoxication; the prohibition is not established as long as it has not boiled and three days have not passed over it.
Ibn Qudama cites Ahmad's statement: "grape juice, once three days have passed over it, has become forbidden, unless it boiled before that, in which case it is lawful". If the juice has boiled like the boiling of a pot and its foam has been skimmed off, there is no disagreement on its lawfulness; if three days pass over it without cooking, our companions say it is forbidden. Ahmad said: drink it three times as long as it has not boiled; once more than three days have passed, do not drink it. Most of the people of knowledge say it is lawful as long as it has not boiled and does not intoxicate, by the word of the Messenger of Allah: "drink in every vessel and do not drink an intoxicant" (reported by Abu Dawud, 201, authentic hadith), for the cause of the prohibition is the vehement intensity, and it occurs only in the intoxicant.
For the first statement: what Abu Dawud reported from Ibn Abbas: the Prophet was given the infusion of raisins and drank it the day, the next day and the day after, until the evening of the third, then ordered it to be given to the servants or poured away (reported by Muslim, 2004, and Abu Dawud, 3713). Al-Shalanji reported from the Prophet: "drink the juice three times as long as it has not boiled". And Ibn Umar said: "drink it as long as your devil has not taken it"; he was asked: within what time? he said: within the three (reported by Abd al-Razzaq in al-Musannaf, 16990, and Ibn Abi Shayba in al-Musannaf, 24334, authentic hadith). The intensity occurs within the three days in the usual case, and it is subtle, requiring a criterion; setting the three days as its criterion was therefore permitted.
The Hanafis declared that the forbidden drinks are only of four kinds, everything else being lawful. The first is wine: raw grape juice when it has intensified and cast its foam, by the word of Allah (Surah al-Ma'idah 90), whose discussion preceded. The second is grape juice cooked until it loses less than the two thirds: it is called tila and ba'ith. The third is the sakar: the infusion of raw dates when it has intensified and boiled. The fourth is the infusion of raw raisins when it has boiled, intensified and frothed, with disagreement between Abu Yusuf and Muhammad on one side and Abu Hanifa on the other, the latter two not requiring the foam.
The infusion of dates and raisins, each cooked with the lightest cooking, that is, until ripeness, is lawful even when strong, if one drinks what is presumed not to intoxicate, without amusement or euphoria, and for strengthening oneself in obedience, for stretching the food or for treatment; otherwise it is forbidden by unanimity. Likewise cooked grape juice whose two thirds have disappeared is lawful even when strong if strength is intended; if amusement is intended, it is forbidden. The prohibition of these drinks is less than that of wine, for the prohibition of wine is certain and this one belongs to the jurist's effort: its drinker is not flogged as long as he does not become drunk, and whoever deems it lawful is not an unbeliever.
The infusion of honey, called bit', of figs, called mizr, of wheat and of corn is lawful to drink even without cooking, if one drinks it without amusement or euphoria but for strength and food, by the Prophet's word: "wine comes from these two trees: the palm and the vine" (reported by Muslim, 1985), whose meaning is the clarification of the ruling, and because their little does not call to their much. They differed over whether the one who becomes drunk on it is flogged: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan holds the flogging and the falling of the divorce, and it has been said that this is the correct view of the madhhab, for in some lands the wicked gather over it as over wine and more. Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf hold the infusion of cereals and honeys lawful under its condition, without flogging for drunkenness nor falling of the divorce.
The majority of jurists, Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, hold that every drink whose much intoxicates has its little forbidden, and that the ruling of wine applies to it in prohibition, impurity and hadd, whether raw or cooked; this is the position of most of the Companions. Their proofs are many, among which seven that the sheet lists:
Al-Nawawi concludes that these hadiths explicitly forbid all intoxicating infusions, all called wine: the fadih, the infusions of dates, fresh dates, unripe dates, raisins, barley, corn, honey and the others; all are forbidden and called wine; this is our madhhab, and Malik, Ahmad and the mass of the ancients and the moderns said it. Some Basrans forbid only raw grape juice and the raw infusion of raisins, the cooked and the rest being lawful as long as one does not drink it becoming drunk. Abu Hanifa forbids only the juice of the palm's fruits and of the vine: grape juice is forbidden little and much, except if cooked until it loses the two thirds; the cooked infusion of dates and raisins is lawful even if the fire touched it a little, without a measure criterion, unlike grape juice; the raw is forbidden but its drinker is not flogged; all of this as long as one does not become drunk, for the intoxicant is forbidden by the agreement of the Muslims.
The majority argues from the Quran: Allah indicated that the cause of the prohibition of wine is turning away from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer, and this cause exists in every intoxicant, so the ruling spreads over all of them. If it is objected that this meaning occurs only in drunkenness, already forbidden by unanimity, the answer is: they were unanimous on the prohibition of raw grape juice even when not intoxicating, and Allah cited its cause; what shares its meaning, the ruling spreads over it: the prohibition bears on the intoxicating kind, the cause being what usually comes from it. Al-Mazini judges this argument stronger than everything by which one argues in this question, and proposes a second way: sweet grape juice at pressing, which does not intoxicate, is lawful by unanimity; intensified and intoxicating, it is forbidden by unanimity; if it transforms without human fermentation it becomes lawful again: the rulings are therefore tied to the renewing attribute, which shows they are attached to this attribute, and intoxication is the cause of the prohibition. The second way is the abundance of the sound hadiths Muslim and others reported: "every intoxicant is forbidden", "he forbade every intoxicant", "every intoxicant is wine", the hadith of Ibn Umar reported by Muslim at the end of the chapter of drinks: "every intoxicant is wine, and every intoxicant is forbidden", in one narration: "every intoxicant is wine, and every wine is forbidden", and the hadith forbidding every intoxicant that turns away from prayer.
Ibn Qudama: every intoxicant is forbidden, little and much, and its ruling is that of grape juice in prohibition and in the obligation of the hadd on its drinker; this prohibition was reported from Umar, Ali, Ibn Mas'ud, Ibn Umar, Abu Hurayra, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, Ubayy ibn Ka'b, Anas and Aisha, and said by Ata, Tawus, Mujahid, al-Qasim, Qatada, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, Malik, al-Shafi'i, Abu Thawr, Abu Ubayd and Ishaq. Al-Amrani confirms it: the other intoxicating drinks, like cooked grape juice and the infusions of dates, raisins, corn and barley, are forbidden little and much, and the hadd is due on their drinker; said by Umar, Ali, Ibn Abbas, Ibn Umar, Abu Hurayra, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, Ibn Mas'ud and Aisha, and among the jurists Malik, al-Awza'i, Ahmad and Ishaq. Abu Hanifa details his four kinds: wine, intensified and frothed grape juice, forbidden little and much with the hadd on its drinker, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad not requiring the foam: intensified and boiled, it is wine; the cooked of grape juice, forbidden while it loses less than the two thirds, without hadd as long as its drinker does not become drunk, and lawful once the two thirds are lost, except the intoxicant; cooked with whole grapes, two narrations, the famous one holding it lawful even without loss of the two thirds; the infusion of dates and raisins, lawful if cooked over fire, without hadd as long as its drinker does not become drunk, the intoxicant being forbidden with hadd, and forbidden if the fire has not touched it, without hadd as long as not intoxicating; the infusion of wheat, corn, barley, rice and honey, lawful raw or cooked, only the intoxicant being forbidden, without hadd whether one becomes drunk or not.
Their proofs: al-Nu'man ibn Bashir reported from the Prophet: "there is wine in the grape, wine in the dates, wine in the honey, wine in the wheat, wine in the barley" (reported by Abu Dawud, 3676, at-Tirmidhi, 1872, and Ibn Majah, 3379, authentic hadith); Abu Hurayra: "wine comes from these two trees, the palm and the vine" (Muslim, 1985); Ibn Umar: "every intoxicant is wine, and every wine is forbidden" (Muslim, 2003); it was reported from the Prophet: "wine itself was forbidden, and the intoxicant of every drink", a sound statement of Ibn Abbas (reported by an-Nasa'i, 5684); "what its much intoxicates, its little is forbidden" (reported by Abu Dawud, 3681, at-Tirmidhi, 1865, an-Nasa'i, 5607, and Ibn Majah, 3393-3394, authentic hadith); and the hadith of Aisha on the farq (reported by Abu Dawud, 3687, at-Tirmidhi, 1866, Ahmad, 24468, and Ibn Hibban, 5383); the farq, with the r soft, holds a hundred and twenty ratl, and with the r sharp sixteen ratl, the report being transmitted with the sharp r. Allah moreover forbade wine and indicated the meaning for which He forbade it: the devil casts enmity and hatred in it and turns away from remembrance and prayer; these meanings exist in these drinks, so their ruling is that of wine in prohibition and hadd.
Ahmad's companions differed over whether these drinks bear the name of wine: some say they do, by "there is wine in the dates, in the honey, in the barley, in the wheat" and by what Umar and Abu Musa al-Ash'ari said: "wine is what covers the intellect"; their prohibition then rests on the verse. Most say the name of wine does not apply to them, by: "wine itself was forbidden, and the intoxicant of every drink"; otherwise it would have sufficed to say: wine itself was forbidden; on this basis nothing establishes their prohibition but the Sunna and analogy.
Ibn al-Qayyim: whoever deems the intoxicating drink lawful claiming it is not wine, while knowing its meaning is the meaning of wine, its aim its aim and its effect its effect, has a corrupt interpretation; wine is the name of every intoxicating drink, as the sound and explicit texts establish. This hadith reached from the Prophet through other channels: an-Nasa'i reported: "people of my community will drink wine calling it by another name", and its chain is sound; Ibn Majah reported it from Ubad ibn al-Samit as a statement raised to the Prophet, and Ahmad with this wording: "a part of my community will surely deem wine lawful"; and from Abu Umama: "the nights and days will not pass until a part of my community drinks wine calling it by another name". Those people only drank wine deeming it lawful because they believed the forbidden was only what the word falls upon, and that this word did not cover what they deemed lawful.
The chapter's logic is constant: what intoxicates is forbidden whatever its name or substance; what does not intoxicate remains lawful in its little, and the solid narcotics follow the model of wine with the nuances of the solid. The only real subjects of disagreement are the dose criterion and the status of the habituated; the attributions reported here are those of the mawsu'a sheets, to be checked in the cited sources.