"Captioning provided by MUHSEN (www.muhsen.org)"
Islam is known for its categorical rejection
- Islam is known for its categorical rejection
of alcohol consumption and,
perhaps, this is the easiest of the wise and
merciful prohibitions of Muhammad's message to appreciate.
(Gentle music)
And, you know, this prohibition being contrary
to the prevailing norms at his time
among pagans, Jews, and Christians,
argues against the notion
that his ministry was some accumulation
of all of the teachings around him
that he absorbed and created a message concocted it
from his surrounding environment.
But in addition to it being revolutionary and original,
it was incredibly wise in its framework
Number one,
the Prophet Muhammad SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam,
said to the people,
"Whatever intoxicates in large amounts
then even a small amount of it is still unlawful."
Sensible people should realize how utterly illogical
the current recommendation of 'drink responsibly' is.
For it leaves the decision of when to stop drinking
in the hands of those
actively impairing their own judgment through drinking.
Number two,
in addition to the zero tolerance policy,
the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him
prohibited people from sitting at a table,
sitting in a gathering,
where intoxicants were being circulated.
And this too is incredibly wise
because peer pressure does not just prey on young children.
It applies to adults just the same.
And we know from our current state of affairs
the fail of the designated driver concept
where one person is gonna sit at that table
but be able to resist and abstain
and remain sober to safely drive everyone else home.
It's been 40 years since the Harvard alcohol project
has imported the designated driver concept.
And yet alcohol-related traffic deaths have not
been mitigated even by 50%
since it has been brought into our societies.
Number three and above all, He, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam,
taught that spiritual and moral refinement
were the inner core
and the true bedrock upon which moral reform
and temperance could actually be built.
And only through them, can a person be liberated
from this destructive vice.
As his wife 'Aishah, may Allah be pleased with her, said,
"The Quran first came down and brought to people,
mention of paradise and the Hellfire
until when their hearts inclined to Islam, the dos
and don'ts, the laws, the commands, and prohibitions came
down and had the first thing to come down,
been those strict policies about extramarital relations."
She said, "and about wine consumption."
She said, "people would've said,
we'll never be able to stop."
And interestingly, alcoholics anonymous,
which has hundreds of thousands of support groups
to rehabilitate people out of alcoholism,
they require belief in some higher power
because they have limited resources
and they saw that success rates simply were not there,
when that belief was absent from a person.
We really ought to just take an honest look around us.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome remains the leading cause
for preventable intellectual disabilities
in the United States.
According to the Center for Disease Control,
about 95,000 deaths occur annually each year
in the United States due to excessive alcohol consumption.
On the one hand, there is the direct toxicity of it.
It harms nearly every system and organ in the human body.
And then there are the impairments caused by
alcohol consumption, which are directly correlated
with reduced workplace productivity,
increased HIV transmission, lethal accidents, violence,
abuse, alluding to the aggressions triggered
by these intoxicants Allah Almighty says in the Quran,
"Satan the devil only seeks to stir between you, animosity
and hatred through these intoxicants
and through gambling
and to divert you from the remembrance of God
and from prayer fahal antum muntahūn.
So will you not desist? will you not stop already."
Much like today when we find people citing
the supposed benefits of drinking wine,
the contemporaries of the prophet Muhammad
peace and blessings be upon him,
also used to boast of their drinking
and how it would render them fearless
and how that too was a benefit
because it allowed am to exhibit valor
through their fearlessness on the battlefield
and exhibit generosity through their fearlessness
and perform acts of philanthropy.
But the Quran came and overturned that myopic thinking
by juxtaposing, these supposed advantages
with the inevitable greater harms
that are inseparable from them, such as unnecessary violence
and the wastage of vital finances
Muhammad's message made Islam's uniquely firm stance
on intoxicants, scriptural, and therefore ever-relevant
not subject to being contravened
by fluctuating politics or by supposed benefits.
And this seems to be playing a major role
in why minority communities today
who are often disproportionately harmed
by alcohol consumption are converting
to Islam in droves today.
They find in Muhammad's message
a path to reclaim their lives
that they cannot seem to find anywhere else.
"Captioning provided by MUHSEN (www.muhsen.org)"