"And from the fruits of the date palm and the vine, from which you derive strong drink and goodly provision. Surely in this is a sign for a people who understand." Quran 16:67
"They ask thee about wine and gambling. Say, 'In them there is great sin and [some] benefits for mankind, but their sin is greater than their benefit.'" Quran 2:219
"O you who believe! Draw not near unto prayer when you are drunken until you know what you are uttering, nor in a state of ritual impurity - unless you are passing through - until you have washed." Quran 4:43
"O you who believe! Wine, and gambling, and idols, and divining arrows are but a means of defilement, of Satan's doing. So avoid it, that haply you may prosper. Satan desires only to sow enmity and hatred among you through wine and gambling, and to turn you away from the remembrance of God, and from prayer. Will you, then, refrain." (Quran 5:90-91)
Years ago when I taught in Abu Dhabi I can remember once talking to my female students before class (the classes were always divided by gender, as was the campus, and I only had the opportunity to teach the women). I'm not exactly sure what originated the discussion, but I think it was whether or not I had watched a particular soccer match the night before. The conversation went something like this:
GS: "Yeah, I saw some of it on the TV at the bar while I was waiting to be seated at the restaurant. The Emirati guys at the bar were pretty excited."
[Uncomfortable silence]
Student: "Sir (they were painfully polite and always said Sir), they couldn't have been Emiratis."
GS: "I thought they were, but maybe they weren't. The wasn't really the point of the story. Anyway, . . ."
Student: "Sir, I mean, if they were Emiratis then they would be Muslims, and if they were Muslims then they wouldn't be at the bar, so whoever you saw at the bar couldn't have been an Emirati."
GS: [smiling] "I wish you had shown me that much logic on your last essay. [Students laughed] Yeah, I bet they weren't Emiratis. OK, now about today's dis . . ."
Student: [smiling as she comes out with very knowing response] "Yeah, they must have been Saudis." [general laughter, as we all waltzed back from the abyss].
One of the popular perceptions about Islam is that Muslims don't drink. Does this mean that no Muslim ever drinks? Of course not. Muslims, like adherents of every religion in the world, are humans, and humans, as we know, are seldom on task. Which I think is the beauty of that conversation. Some of the more sheltered students were more than a bit shocked that a Muslim would have been drinking, but others, including the young woman who spoke, knew that it wasn't that simple and thus she was taking the opportunity to wind me up a bit in front of her classmates (including the beautiful fail-safe dig at the neighboring Saudis).
Now, since everyone knows that Muslims don't drink this must mean that this is a constant theme throughout the Quran. Actually, no. Wine is only mentioned four times in the Quran, which are the four passages that I cited above. As we know the Quran is not structured chronologically, but there is a fairly general sense of what order the surahs were revealed (although try finding an online list of exactly what year every surah was revealed). The 96th surah (in the order inside the Quran) was actually the first revealed, in 610, whereas the 110th (in the order inside the Quran) was the last revealed (or the 114th in order of revelation), in the year before the Prophet's death. About three-quarters of the surahs were revealed in Mecca, while the last quarter were revealed later during the time in Medina. Like I said, there's a pretty good sense of where and generally when they were revealed, but the ones around the time when the Prophet finally moved from Mecca to Medina are a little bit more likely to inspire some limited debate.
In regards to the four referenced above:
surah 16 - al-Nahl ("The Bee") - revealed in Mecca, the 70th in order of revelation
surah 2 - al-Baqarah ("The Cow") - revealed in Medina, the 87th in order of revelation
surah 4 - al-Nisa ("Women") - revealed in Medina, the 92nd in order of revelation
surah 5 - al-Ma'idah ("The Table Spread") - revealed in Medina, the 112th in order of revelation
It's not as simple as this, but for our present purpose it's enough.
Essentially, what you have is a progression of the view of wine, but you have to know the order of revelation as compared to the order that you'd find if you just started reading the Quran at surah 1 and then went all the way through to surah 114. But, again, without context how would you possibly know that? Again, this brings us back to having something like Nasr's Study Quran in your possession before you just blindly jump into reading the Quran (it's not that you won't pick up a lot of the beauty and the more complex passages, but there are worlds within worlds here). We've talked before about abrogation, wherein a passage in the Quran will abrogate or replace an earlier passage. As I've said, I have issues with abrogation for any number of reasons, which I will not bore you, again. Going back to the notion of a progression: 1) in surah 16 we're told that God provided many blessings to humankind, including some fruit that can be used to make wine; 2) in surah 2 we're told that wine, like other things, has some benefits but probably more detriments, and so if you drink you need to do so in a moderate, controlled fashion; 3) in surah 4 we're told that you should never pray while intoxicated; and finally 4) in surah 5 we're told that wine is a "defilement" and we shouldn't drink (to be fair, some of the translations of this passage are harsher and more definitive than Nasr's). Let me throw in a couple different translations because I think it's important to get a sense of this key passage (at least in regards to the question of wine):
Yahiya Emerick's translation: "All you who believe! Truly, liquor and gtambling, stone altars (dedicated to 'feeding' idolts) and (using marked) arrowheads (drawn randomly from a bag to apportion meat) are all the disgraceful works of Satan, so forsake them that you may be successful! Satan wants to stir up hostility and hatred among you with liquor and gambling, so as to hinder you from remembering God and (and also to hinder you) from prayer. Won't you give up (those bad habits)?"
Abdyllah Yusuf Ali's translation: "O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination - of Satan's handiwork; eschew such (abomination), that ye may prosper. Satan's plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer: will ye not then abstain?"
To me, all of them are more of a cautionary tale. We aren't told that we will be thrown into the pits of hell, but rather that drinking (and gambling) are bad because they can cause enmity/hatred/hostility between people. The adhadith (the sayings of the Prophet) are more categorical in their rejection of drinking, although even here I don't think there is a record of the Prophet punishing someone for drinking. My collected adhadith are at school, so maybe I'll revisit this question in the future.
So, going back to the abrogation concept,even though three of the four references to wine in the Quran or either positive or at worst cautionary, what matters is that that that last reference to wine, the one in surah 5, which admonishes Muslims to not drink, is the one that matters because it abrogated the other three. And again, if you don't know the context, in this case the order based on revelation, the final reference you'd come by just reading the Quran "in order," would be one telling you of the blessing of God's gift that led to the creation of wine.
Let me bring in a little corresponding commentary from Nasr from the Study Quran to provide even more context.
First, in regards to surah 2, Nasr explains, "Regarding the benefits for mankind in wine; al-Qurtubi mentions that it helps with digestion, makes a miserly person magnanimous, gives boldness to the timid, gives color to the face, helps one to have sex, and makes one feel good for a short time. (Although this verse mentions specifically wine, Islamic Law understands this ruling to apply to all alcoholic drinks.) . . . As for their harm, intoxication leads to loss of one's rational faculties, quarreling, violence, promiscuity, impaired judgment, and forgetting the remembrance of God." (p. 95)
Again, Nasr, "Although only this last verse amounts to an absolute prohibition against the consumption of alcoholic drink, Islamic jurisprudence, basing itself upon Prophetic sayings (ahadith) and practices (Sunnah), has consistently viewed this last revealed verse as the authoritative one that abrogates the legal implications of the other three." (p. 212)
At this point I suppose the question to ask would be: do I drink? It's my blog and I try to be honest, and I didn't start this reflection on personal faith to pose as something I'm not, so, to be honest, yes, I do have an occasional drink. And I do mean occasional, as in about two beers a month. I drink so little that when I go to the doctor he always records that I don't drink, to which I usually reply, "Oh, I drink, my friend, I mean, not this month, or the last, but, oh, you just watch me next month." It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to not drink those two beers for my faith (I mean, if I can fast during Ramadan I think I could survive without my requisite occasional Switchback). So, why don't I just officially give up drinking for my religion? That's a tougher question. Certainly some of it relates to my own innate contrariness and aversion to authority, which, as I've pointed out in the past, is one of the things that drew me to Islam in the first place; we don't really accept much authority above our own personal relationship with God. And doubtless some of this relates to my own well-documented struggle between the external and internal aspects of faith; in this case, when we focus on the rules do we sometimes lose our ability to see the reason for the rules. Am I afraid that I'm going to insult God by drinking something whose creation he made possible? I mean, what's the point of the admonition? My reading of it is that by drinking irresponsibly and to excess we lose sight of our responsibilities, both to our family, friends and society as well as to God (and, again, I think we worship God, in this case remember God, by being a good person and focusing on those responsibilities to family, friends and society). Of course, I could also simply be giving myself an easy pass on this issue, but in the end I don't think my two beers a month are going to doom me to eternal damnation or even qualify me as a bad Muslim or even prove definitively that I'm not actually a Muslim. The vast majority of Muslims, having said all that, don't drink, and I admire their strength and dedication.
"They ask thee about wine and gambling. Say, 'In them there is great sin and [some] benefits for mankind, but their sin is greater than their benefit.'" Quran 2:219
"O you who believe! Draw not near unto prayer when you are drunken until you know what you are uttering, nor in a state of ritual impurity - unless you are passing through - until you have washed." Quran 4:43
"O you who believe! Wine, and gambling, and idols, and divining arrows are but a means of defilement, of Satan's doing. So avoid it, that haply you may prosper. Satan desires only to sow enmity and hatred among you through wine and gambling, and to turn you away from the remembrance of God, and from prayer. Will you, then, refrain." (Quran 5:90-91)
Years ago when I taught in Abu Dhabi I can remember once talking to my female students before class (the classes were always divided by gender, as was the campus, and I only had the opportunity to teach the women). I'm not exactly sure what originated the discussion, but I think it was whether or not I had watched a particular soccer match the night before. The conversation went something like this:
GS: "Yeah, I saw some of it on the TV at the bar while I was waiting to be seated at the restaurant. The Emirati guys at the bar were pretty excited."
[Uncomfortable silence]
Student: "Sir (they were painfully polite and always said Sir), they couldn't have been Emiratis."
GS: "I thought they were, but maybe they weren't. The wasn't really the point of the story. Anyway, . . ."
Student: "Sir, I mean, if they were Emiratis then they would be Muslims, and if they were Muslims then they wouldn't be at the bar, so whoever you saw at the bar couldn't have been an Emirati."
GS: [smiling] "I wish you had shown me that much logic on your last essay. [Students laughed] Yeah, I bet they weren't Emiratis. OK, now about today's dis . . ."
Student: [smiling as she comes out with very knowing response] "Yeah, they must have been Saudis." [general laughter, as we all waltzed back from the abyss].
One of the popular perceptions about Islam is that Muslims don't drink. Does this mean that no Muslim ever drinks? Of course not. Muslims, like adherents of every religion in the world, are humans, and humans, as we know, are seldom on task. Which I think is the beauty of that conversation. Some of the more sheltered students were more than a bit shocked that a Muslim would have been drinking, but others, including the young woman who spoke, knew that it wasn't that simple and thus she was taking the opportunity to wind me up a bit in front of her classmates (including the beautiful fail-safe dig at the neighboring Saudis).
Now, since everyone knows that Muslims don't drink this must mean that this is a constant theme throughout the Quran. Actually, no. Wine is only mentioned four times in the Quran, which are the four passages that I cited above. As we know the Quran is not structured chronologically, but there is a fairly general sense of what order the surahs were revealed (although try finding an online list of exactly what year every surah was revealed). The 96th surah (in the order inside the Quran) was actually the first revealed, in 610, whereas the 110th (in the order inside the Quran) was the last revealed (or the 114th in order of revelation), in the year before the Prophet's death. About three-quarters of the surahs were revealed in Mecca, while the last quarter were revealed later during the time in Medina. Like I said, there's a pretty good sense of where and generally when they were revealed, but the ones around the time when the Prophet finally moved from Mecca to Medina are a little bit more likely to inspire some limited debate.
In regards to the four referenced above:
surah 16 - al-Nahl ("The Bee") - revealed in Mecca, the 70th in order of revelation
surah 2 - al-Baqarah ("The Cow") - revealed in Medina, the 87th in order of revelation
surah 4 - al-Nisa ("Women") - revealed in Medina, the 92nd in order of revelation
surah 5 - al-Ma'idah ("The Table Spread") - revealed in Medina, the 112th in order of revelation
It's not as simple as this, but for our present purpose it's enough.
Essentially, what you have is a progression of the view of wine, but you have to know the order of revelation as compared to the order that you'd find if you just started reading the Quran at surah 1 and then went all the way through to surah 114. But, again, without context how would you possibly know that? Again, this brings us back to having something like Nasr's Study Quran in your possession before you just blindly jump into reading the Quran (it's not that you won't pick up a lot of the beauty and the more complex passages, but there are worlds within worlds here). We've talked before about abrogation, wherein a passage in the Quran will abrogate or replace an earlier passage. As I've said, I have issues with abrogation for any number of reasons, which I will not bore you, again. Going back to the notion of a progression: 1) in surah 16 we're told that God provided many blessings to humankind, including some fruit that can be used to make wine; 2) in surah 2 we're told that wine, like other things, has some benefits but probably more detriments, and so if you drink you need to do so in a moderate, controlled fashion; 3) in surah 4 we're told that you should never pray while intoxicated; and finally 4) in surah 5 we're told that wine is a "defilement" and we shouldn't drink (to be fair, some of the translations of this passage are harsher and more definitive than Nasr's). Let me throw in a couple different translations because I think it's important to get a sense of this key passage (at least in regards to the question of wine):
Yahiya Emerick's translation: "All you who believe! Truly, liquor and gtambling, stone altars (dedicated to 'feeding' idolts) and (using marked) arrowheads (drawn randomly from a bag to apportion meat) are all the disgraceful works of Satan, so forsake them that you may be successful! Satan wants to stir up hostility and hatred among you with liquor and gambling, so as to hinder you from remembering God and (and also to hinder you) from prayer. Won't you give up (those bad habits)?"
Abdyllah Yusuf Ali's translation: "O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination - of Satan's handiwork; eschew such (abomination), that ye may prosper. Satan's plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer: will ye not then abstain?"
To me, all of them are more of a cautionary tale. We aren't told that we will be thrown into the pits of hell, but rather that drinking (and gambling) are bad because they can cause enmity/hatred/hostility between people. The adhadith (the sayings of the Prophet) are more categorical in their rejection of drinking, although even here I don't think there is a record of the Prophet punishing someone for drinking. My collected adhadith are at school, so maybe I'll revisit this question in the future.
So, going back to the abrogation concept,even though three of the four references to wine in the Quran or either positive or at worst cautionary, what matters is that that that last reference to wine, the one in surah 5, which admonishes Muslims to not drink, is the one that matters because it abrogated the other three. And again, if you don't know the context, in this case the order based on revelation, the final reference you'd come by just reading the Quran "in order," would be one telling you of the blessing of God's gift that led to the creation of wine.
Let me bring in a little corresponding commentary from Nasr from the Study Quran to provide even more context.
First, in regards to surah 2, Nasr explains, "Regarding the benefits for mankind in wine; al-Qurtubi mentions that it helps with digestion, makes a miserly person magnanimous, gives boldness to the timid, gives color to the face, helps one to have sex, and makes one feel good for a short time. (Although this verse mentions specifically wine, Islamic Law understands this ruling to apply to all alcoholic drinks.) . . . As for their harm, intoxication leads to loss of one's rational faculties, quarreling, violence, promiscuity, impaired judgment, and forgetting the remembrance of God." (p. 95)
Again, Nasr, "Although only this last verse amounts to an absolute prohibition against the consumption of alcoholic drink, Islamic jurisprudence, basing itself upon Prophetic sayings (ahadith) and practices (Sunnah), has consistently viewed this last revealed verse as the authoritative one that abrogates the legal implications of the other three." (p. 212)
At this point I suppose the question to ask would be: do I drink? It's my blog and I try to be honest, and I didn't start this reflection on personal faith to pose as something I'm not, so, to be honest, yes, I do have an occasional drink. And I do mean occasional, as in about two beers a month. I drink so little that when I go to the doctor he always records that I don't drink, to which I usually reply, "Oh, I drink, my friend, I mean, not this month, or the last, but, oh, you just watch me next month." It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to not drink those two beers for my faith (I mean, if I can fast during Ramadan I think I could survive without my requisite occasional Switchback). So, why don't I just officially give up drinking for my religion? That's a tougher question. Certainly some of it relates to my own innate contrariness and aversion to authority, which, as I've pointed out in the past, is one of the things that drew me to Islam in the first place; we don't really accept much authority above our own personal relationship with God. And doubtless some of this relates to my own well-documented struggle between the external and internal aspects of faith; in this case, when we focus on the rules do we sometimes lose our ability to see the reason for the rules. Am I afraid that I'm going to insult God by drinking something whose creation he made possible? I mean, what's the point of the admonition? My reading of it is that by drinking irresponsibly and to excess we lose sight of our responsibilities, both to our family, friends and society as well as to God (and, again, I think we worship God, in this case remember God, by being a good person and focusing on those responsibilities to family, friends and society). Of course, I could also simply be giving myself an easy pass on this issue, but in the end I don't think my two beers a month are going to doom me to eternal damnation or even qualify me as a bad Muslim or even prove definitively that I'm not actually a Muslim. The vast majority of Muslims, having said all that, don't drink, and I admire their strength and dedication.
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