يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنَّمَا الْخَمْرُ وَالْمَيْسِرُ وَالْأَنصَابُ وَالْأَزْلَامُ رِجْسٌ مِّنْ عَمَلِ الشَّيْطَانِ
Alcohol — The Mother of All Vices
Understanding Islam's prohibition and the devastating reality of alcohol in society
"O ye who believe, intoxicants and gambling... are an abomination of Satan's handiwork: so abstain from such abomination that ye may prosper." — Surah Al-Ma'idah (5:90-91)
Introduction
The Prophet (peace be upon him) called alcohol the mother of all vices (Umm al-Khabaith). Like drugs — another form of intoxicant — drink destroys the well-being of society and damages the economy. Intoxicants of all kinds are destructive. Medically we know they damage health, causing addiction, shrinkage of vital organs such as the brain where irreplaceable cells are destroyed, and ultimately death.
Countless working days are lost because of hangovers and alcohol-related complaints. Families are destroyed through drinking, children are sexually abused, wives battered, family finances depleted, and marriages break up. Alcohol brings about horrific changes of personality that turn sensible, hard-working people into crazed animals.
The Social Destruction of Alcohol
⚠️ The Human Cost
- Hooliganism and rowdyism resulting from drinking is now commonplace
- Drunkenness and abusive behaviour disrupts public transport, city centres, and sporting occasions
- Habitual drunkards — the "winos" who cannot live without it — are ready at times to commit any crime for it
- Drinking or taking any kind of intoxicant is a great sin in Islam
The Contradiction of Western Policy
However, governments and institutions react in typical contradictory approaches. Western governments launch horrific information films against drunk driving. But in the same evening's viewing there is a continual bombardment of commercials for various beers and spirits. Around the country about half of the big adverts are for various alcoholic drinks. Most of the billboards on bus stops and roadsides are for alcoholic drinks. Even football shirts advertise beers.
It is well known that most prisoners committed crimes as a result of substance abuse. Hence governments want to warn against drinking and at the same time rake in the taxes whilst sedating the nation with alcohol. Yet they concentrate on banning the promotion of nicotine smoking?
Islam's Comprehensive Protection
📜 The Five Fundamental Securities
The divinely revealed Islam came to secure and protect five fundamental issues:
- Belief — Protection of faith and spiritual well-being
- Honor — Protection of dignity and family integrity
- Property — Protection of wealth and economic stability
- Life — Protection of physical existence and health
- The Mind — Protection of intellect and reasoning
Islam forbids the use of alcoholic drinks and any other substances that befog the mind. As opposed to Western culture which revolves around alcohol and disillusionment, Islam offers comprehensive and guaranteed security for all these fundamental human needs.
🌿 The Failure of Man-Made Systems
The West has failed to provide any kind of security or protection for the world or for its own citizens. Every day the people find their beliefs derailed and mocked at, their minds poisoned by the entertainment business and the intoxicants available at the counter, their property taken away by economic and financial institutions, their women bought and sold as sexual ornaments and economic commodities, and their lives looming with the prospect of encountering a killer.
Alcohol — An Instrument of Oppression
Alcohol is an instrument of oppression, and was used effectively by the apartheid and colonial regimes to oppress people. Alcohol is probably South Africa's major community problem and it is responsible for more ill-health, psychological disturbances, social friction, quarrels, and fights than any other single factor.
📊 The Shocking Statistics (South Africa)
- R9.5 billion — the staggering annual cost of alcoholism to South Africa (1997, increasing daily)
- About half of South Africa's workforce of 8,665,700 are consumers of alcoholic beverages; 250,000 workers have serious problems
- R950 million lost in production due to alcoholism
- R648 million lost in alcohol-related health and medical costs, motor vehicle accidents, violence and crime, fire losses, and social programmes
- Over 8,000 deaths on South African roads every year — more than 4,000 directly from drunk driving
- Over 25,000 people arrested every year for driving under the influence
- More than 3 million economically active South Africans of all races are addicted to alcohol
- South Africans drink at least 4.9 billion litres of alcohol every year
- Experimenting with alcohol starts as young as 9–11 years old
- Children start drinking regularly at 13–14 years
- A majority have developed a drinking pattern by age 20
- South Africa's blacks alone spend a staggering R1,655 million every year on alcohol
- Prof. Harry Seftel (Head of African Diseases at Wits University): "Ninety percent of nutritional problems among urban blacks are related to alcoholism"
The Medical and Physical Damage
⚠️ Children Born of Alcoholic Mothers
- Mental retardation
- Holes in the heart
- Genital defects
- Webbing of fingers
- Even moderate consumption of alcohol affects unborn babies
A Call to Action
It is about time that we realised that alcohol leads to a false sense of values, aimlessness, lack of character, destitution, beggary, drunkenness, stealing, gangsterism, murder, and rape. That is why it is important that governments, institutions, and Health Ministries urgently stop the advertising of liquor on TV, press, and the media in general.
📜 Proposed Warning Labels for Alcohol
- "Beware — alcohol is a poison"
- "Alcohol causes alcoholism"
- "Alcohol is a dangerous drug"
- "Alcohol destroys families"
- "Alcohol pollutes the mind"
- "Alcohol causes mental retardation"
- "Alcohol causes impotence"
- "Alcohol affects unborn babies"
- "Alcohol can cause cancer"
- "Alcohol leads to poverty"
The governments, institutions, and the Ministry of Health, and all those concerned with health, have a duty to protect the health and well-being of the nation. After reading the above information, I hope that you will realise the seriousness and urgency of the situation and take the necessary action programme. For every second that is wasted, more and more people are being affected and becoming victims of this poison called alcohol.
Conclusion
Let us all join together to destroy this curse and mother of all vices in our lives. The above are just a few examples of the disastrous and harmful effects of alcohol in the lives of the South African nation. Much, much more damage is caused directly or indirectly by this poisonous drug. Volumes can be written about the tragedies, sufferings, misery, mental and physical ill-health.
— (Late Abdullah Osman, Editor AL-ISLAM) —