Shun The Intoxicants If You Are Well-Born
That the exalted God of creation and what abound therein Has been good to man is no hearsay. He Has created him from nothing, fashioned him in good shape and appearance, feed him with legal foods and drinks while He Has warned him to refrain from the illegal ones.
He Has done the above as a result of the benefits the good legal foods and drinks will return to the bodies and hearts of those who will eat and drink them while He Has warned man from wallowing in the illegal ones so as to save him from physiological and psychological diseases which they may inherit for him if he does not disengage from eating and drinking them.
Among these illegal drinks are intoxicants which when drinking them, they cover man’s brain and make him behaved like a maniac that his wive, children, neighbors and society at large are not saved to dwell with him again! Intoxicants, according to prophet Muhammad ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) are illegal! In one of his sayings he says:
“Anything that intoxicates is illegal”
Although, alcohol, opium and laughing gas are age-long intoxicants that had been with man from many generations up till now, there are still other new drugs, animal dungs, human faeces etc which man has taken as intoxicants and which negatively affected his medulla oblongata though he thinks otherwise for minutes of making him high or for momentous relief from some ailments he suffers.
A walk or some minutes’ strolling in your neighborhood will reveal how widespread and entrenched are the intoxicants and their sellers among the people today even in arenas where Muslims are dwelling! You cannot go round your vicinity for five -ten minutes without counting ten or fifteen shops, kiosks, and bars selling alcoholics and other intoxicants which are inimical to people’s bodies, mental and religion’s health.
Even odds places which were hitherto freed of antisocial behaviours are now known for the unrighteousness in the world as a result of the homes and societies which have been transformed from mere homes to bars, hotels and jungles where intoxicant stuffs are freely sold.
Perhaps, having being divinely inspired to talk and for giving the exoteric and esoteric knowledge of man and his environment, prophet Muhammad ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) is right to have defined every thing that intoxicates the mind as illegal! But as variant as the intoxicants are, alcohol is still at the top of the packs of substances which carry man from his natural essence to bestial nature and more.
As the mother of all malevolent and hurtful intoxicants which adversely affect human’s body, brain and religion, whenever it is taken, alcohol turns an old man to infant while it debases a wise one to silly ignorant laughing stock of the children.
And as some people take it as their leisure which they unwind with , some have turned it to like water to quench their thirst while it is now the cocktail of the fake knowledgeable and scholars of Islam which are adopted in mixing their concoctions! Before now, it was not that some unscrupulous learned Ulamas were not into drinking concoctions with alcoholics but the act was perpetrated in camera but these days, these unholy men of holy calling are buying alcoholics and still using them in the public without fearing what the public will say or do.
Perhaps, it is the repercussions and the ability of alcoholics to turn the adept into inept and unnecessarily audacious, bold and brazen unfortunate lots that warrants Allah’s warning in Qu’ran 5:90 concerning the drinking of alcoholics as uncleanness and a satanic act! We read this as follows:
” O you who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, sacrificing to stones, and divination by arrows , are an abomination,- of Satan’s handiwork; eschew such abomination that you may prosper”
Prosperities in the form personal and societal growths are therefore stunted by way of wallowing in alcoholics and other intoxicants! Resources that can enhance the personal and societal growths of the lovers of the alcoholics and intoxicants are diverted to the sustenance of this debauched act.
That is in this life! But in the life to come, the lovers of alcoholics and intoxicants will not be allowed to enter the Paradise not to talk of drinking and enjoying the more non inebriated drinks the inmates of the Paradise will enjoy as parts of the perks of those who are fortunate to enter it! The glorious Qur’an reads in that instance as follows:
:” A parable of the Garden which the righteous ( those who guard against evils) are promised :In it are rivers of water installing; rivers of milk of which the taste never changes; rivers of wine, a joy to those who drink it; and rivers of honey pure and clean. In it, there are for them all kinds of fruits; and forgiveness from their Lord. Can those in such bliss be compared to such as shall dwell for ever in the Fire, and be given, to drink , boiling water, so that it cuts up their bowels to pieces!”
Allama Yusuf Ali commented on that verse as follows:
” In this description there are four kinds of drinks and all kinds of fruits; and the summing up of all delights in the “forgiveness from their Lord”. The four kinds of drinks are: (1) delicious, cool ,pure water, not like earthly water, for it never suffers corruption; (2) milk which never turns sour, whose taste is like that of fresh warm milk drawn from udder; (3) wine, not like any wine on earth, for it leaves no headaches behind, and causes no intoxication, which is a kind of madness or poison,but is ever a joy to drink; and (4) honey, pure and clear, with no admixture of wax or any foreign substance. These drinks, will cool the spirit, feed the heart, warm the affections, and sweeten life”.
In the Sahih of Muslim, an Hadith on drinking of the intoxicants reads as follows:
” He who drinks alcoholics in this life but does not repent ( refrain from drinking it afterwards) will not be allowed to drink it in the hereafter ”
What this indicates is that the drinker of alcoholics here in this life will not be allowed to enter the Paradise for entering it presupposes its drinking! For it is in entering the Paradise that one will be liable to choose whatever that pleases one as its dweller according to other Quranic verses:
” We are your protectors in this life and in the Hereafter: therein you shall have all you shall desire; therein you shall have all you ask for!”
In another Hadith, the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) affirms the fact that the drinker of alcoholics and intoxicants will not enter the Paradise. He says:
” Three categories of people will not enter the Paradise: ” the one intoxicated by alcoholics, the one who cuts the tie of family and the lover of charm and magic ”
Lovers of Allah’s religion and the tradition of His prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam), know that, there is no doubt in the fact that drinking of alcoholics is illegal in the Book of Allah; the glorious Qur’an and the Sunnah of His apostle Muhammad ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) and the consensus of the scholars.
Besides, know that every intoxicant is also alcoholic! And if this fact is entrenched in one’s consciousness how can he be the producer of alcoholics and other intoxicants if not for ignorance and the excessive love of this ephemeral life than the permanent one in the hereafter? How can one prefers an object God in His infinite wisdom Has described as an instrument Satan the accursed does devise ” to excite enmity and hatred among you and which hinders you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer? ”
The Earthly Punishment Of The Lover Of Intoxicants
In an ideal Islamic state, the one who is wallowing in alcoholics if caught will be given eighty (80) thrashes of canes like the punishment of the one who defames people’s character.
The punishment of the slander and defamer of people’s characters is given to the lover of alcoholics because as observed by Aliy Bn Abi Talib, the fourth rightly guided caliph, :”he who engages in alcoholics will be inebriated and when he is inebriated he will prattle and when he is prattled he will definitely slander and defame others and sometimes, he killed others!”
There are many intoxicated beings who commit adultery as a result of being inebriated and who eventually engage in murdering others because he can not think clearly on the repercussions of his actions and because Satan is being goaded him into engaging in evils and bestial acts! This is the reason the prophet ( Salla-llahu alehi wasalam) has disapproved and cursed ten people around alcoholics!
Ten Personalities Cursed By The Prophet Because Of The Evil Inherent In Intoxicants.
Some people who play one role or the others in the chains of production and distribution of intoxicants have been cursed by the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) as a result of the evils these products are spreading in the land. They are:
The producer of the intoxicants, the juicer of them, the one who drinks them, their transporter, their distributor, their server where they are sold, their seller, the one who eats from the money accrued from them, the buyer and the one whom other buyers buy the product for”.
Among the harms of the intoxicants in the society are that they prevent people from remembering Allah and prevent them from observing prayers regularly as they also plant hatred and discord among lovers and friends.
Besides, intoxicants are sure ways into prolonging poverty and disease, wasting of precious but limited human time, wasting of human souls and the harbinger of terrorism and war!
Moreover, parts of the solutions to prevent people from wallowing in the drinking and using of intoxicants as prescribed by Islam are constant remembrance of Allah, death, friendship with righteous and people of good manners, praying against their uses and against poverty, disbelief and being satisfying with the permitted among fruits and drinks
Oh you readers! The evil effects of intoxicants are widespread these days and it behooves the well born to desist from taking them for the peace of the world. In the word of Ibn Ward, an Arabic philologist ,jurist, governance and political scholar, he says:
” Divorce the intoxicants if you are Well-born** how will a sensible being be behaving like a maniac ** (as a result of the intoxicants he drinks)!