As Salamu Alaykum my question is about Alcohol ?

[Ahmad H]

Assalamu alaikum. Even if someone's intent is to just have a drink or two in a social setting or with a meal and not for the purposes of becoming intoxicated and even if the end result is that the alcohol is not enough to render intoxication, it is still haram. Alcohol is not needed to survive in most cases. I assume it would be permitted in a life threatening emergency such as someone bleeding severely and using topical alcohol as an anesthetic or drinking it until they can get to life-saving water. Someone who is more knowledgable in this area can please correct me if I'm wrong.

I may not be more knowledgeable, but I do believe that this is the same case with pork. If in the very rare situation there was no food except pork, and you could not stay alive unless you had to eat it, then you would have to eat it to stay live until you could eventually eat what is Halal and stay alive on that. The point is not that the food is Haram and you must die rather than eat it if your life depended on it, but you must survive to pray another day in this life so you can submit to Allah for a longer lifetime.

Similarly, I would think if your life depended on it, then you would have to consume that necessary amount of alcohol. The point is to be able to pray another day. One of the reasons why we aren't allowed to drink alcohol is because if we are intoxicated then we cannot pray, since we aren't in our full senses. It is Haram nevertheless, but if there was a pressing need and there was no way out of it, then I honestly don't see how it affects our being Muslim, since we aren't supposed to commit suicide either. Thus, rather than committing suicide, we have to consume these Haram things for the sake of performing Halal deeds for a lot longer.

For me as well, if anyone sees something going against this based on some good clear evidence, I would like to see it.

 

[Insaanah]

No other drug has the same catastrophic effect on society as a whole, globally, as alcohol. No other drug, contributes to the same amount of disorder, violent crime, domestic abuse, one-night stands, rapes, murders, road rage, assaults, anti-social behaviour, damage to property, damage to one self (a whole compendium can be written on it's adverse effects on various parts of the body) and to others around you, as alcohol. Any minor benefit it might have is heavily outweighed by it's negative and potentially serious effects on health and society.

Islam takes a preventative approach to problems in society. When something is forbidden, then the avenues leading to it are also forbidden. It makes no difference how many people worldwide can "safely" handle a glass of alcohol.

Aside from this, and even without all this, if Allah declared it haraam, it is haraam.

And Allah knows best.

 

[greenhill]

Salaam Truthseeker63.

You quoted 2:219 whereby the play of words spun me round and got me squirmming. We all know already it is haram, .....but.. why ...the ...'benefits'..?..not something like 'folly' for the lack of a better word. But benefit it is. And the sin is greater than the benefit. Really, then there is no benefit, even with the excesses. It's a test. Unless the benefit of it is health.

Just my thoughts. Peace

 

[IAmZamzam]

The benefits are the test. And very unfortunately intoxicants do have their upsides, both socially and neurologically. Even the trick they pull on us artistic types--making us think that they can enhance our performance, boost our creativity, give us good ideas--is only 80 or 90 percent an illusion. Much like the "you'll work better if you're up all night" trick: there is a weird grain of truth to it somehow. But of course is that any excuse for the havoc it'll wreak on your mind and body and livelihood? As Popeye put it in that somewhat underrated movie, "Wrong is wrong even when it helps you."