In these days, countries that allow alcohol are suffering from it and the number of alcoholics is increasing rapidly. In the U.S.A., for example, the number of alcoholics has increased from four million in the 1960s to ten million in the 1970s. In Britain, the number of alcoholics has increased from half a million to one million. In some European countries, the percentage of alcoholics is 8% of the population!
Alcoholic drinks are the only poison that is licensed in those countries. However, Islam took a clear attitude towards alcoholic drinks more than 1400 years ago. Islam prohibits such drinks. Any drink that causes drunkenness is prohibited in Islam regardless of the matter it is made from and regardless of the quantity.
According to Islam, if too much of a drink causes drunkenness, then any small quantity of this drink is prohibited, because all alcoholics start with small quantities, then they become the slaves of alcohol.
Islam does not only prohibit drinking alcoholic drinks, but also prohibits making them. Islam also prohibits carrying, selling, or buying such drinks. According to Islam, if something is prohibited, all means to it are also prohibited. The reason is that it is no use to forbid something and allow the means leading to it at the same time. If alcoholic drinks are prohibited, all means to them should be prohibited; Islam prohibits the making, transporting, importing exporting, buying, and selling and selling of such drinks.
However there are some illusions that many people falsely believe about alcohol. In this article we will try to discuss and refute them to show the wisdom of prohibiting alcohol in Islam. We will also prove that Islam does not prohibit a thing unless it is harmful and dangerous.
Illusions and Facts:
1) Alcohol and Appetite: It was believed that alcoholic drink function as appetizers, but this is against confirmed scientific facts. Alcoholic drinks function as appetizers for the first week or month only, then soon the stomach and other parts of the digestive system become inflamed. Infections and ulcers begin to show up; vomiting starts; all appetite is lost.
2) Alcohol and False Warmth: It was also believed that alcoholic drinks cause warmth in the human body. But facts proved that it is only a false warmth caused by the widening of outer blood vessels. But if the drunkard is exposed to cold weather, he loses all his warmth and energy and may die of cold thinking he is enjoying warmth.
3) Alcohol and the sexual drive: Alcoholic drinks increase the sexual desire and thus may lead the drunkard to commit strange crimes under the influence of alcohol because his brain cannot function normally and in this case social values are trespassed. However, continuous drinking of alcoholic drinks ends up with sexual impotency. This shows us the wisdom of prohibiting alcohol in Islam.
Alcohol and Health:
Alcoholic drinks, which are prohibited by Islam, have a destructive effect on the nervous system through the direct toxic effect. Besides, alcohol may lead to alcoholism with its psychological and mental troubles such as convulsions and hallucination. Further, alcohol leads to malnutrition caused by inflammations in the digestive system, repeated vomiting, loss of appetite, and bad absorption in the digestive system. To add, some alcohols may cause complete blindness and heat failure owing to their severe toxicity.
An alcoholic becomes careless, selfish, easily provoked, and suspicious. He may suffer paranoia. He becomes sexually impotent. He is hated by his wife and children. He suffers from melancholy. He may end up committing suicide. An alcoholic may suffer from hallucinations: he may think he sees unreal ghosts or hear unreal voices or smell unreal scents.
Alcohol causes decay in the cells of the brain and the cortex. This may cause alcoholic psychosis and loss of memory. In this stage, an alcoholic loses the ability to distinguish the concrete from the abstract and the real from the unreal. He cannot even know the day or the place. An alcoholic loses the ability to calculate, to add or substract the easiest numbers. An alcoholic cannot remember the most recent incidents in his life.
An alcoholic may become unable to stand up without losing his balance. When he walks, he staggers. When he speaks, he slurs. He may suffer from the clubbing and swelling of his fingers. A male alcoholic develops female qualities and female alcoholic develop male qualities such as the stoppage of menstruation and the complete loss of the sexual motive.
An alcoholic suffers continual nightmares, where he sees and hears terrible things. All his life becomes a series of delusions and hallucinations. He may faint and lose consciousness any time.
The body of an alcoholic soon loses resistance to microbes and thus becomes an easy prey to any microbe. He has troubles in the kidneys, albumin in the urine, fatal blood acidity, which may end tragically with heart failure.
An alcoholic does not usually care for buying food. If he buys food, he has no appetite to eat it. If he eats it, he vomits what he has eaten. If he does not vomit, his digestive system cannot function well or absorb well. Thus an alcoholic soon goes into malnutrition and lack of vitamins; especially vitamin B. further, this Vitamin B is consumed by alcohol in the process of oxidization.
As a result of the lack of Vitamin B and malnutrition, the alcoholic may suffer paralysis in the hands, feet, and legs. He may have infections in the brain. He may have decay in cortex cells, which leads to madness. He may have infection in eye nerves, which ends up with blindness. Alcohol is simply a poison.
A drunkard may fall down under the influence of wine. This fall may cause a brain shock, a brain pressure, and a breakage in the backbone, bone breakage, or bleedings.
The effect of alcohol is not limited to the nervous system. Alcohol destroys all the parts, passages, and organs of the digestive system as well.
1) The Alcoholic’s Tongue: The tongue of an alcoholic is covered with a dirty cover, where microbes grow and multiply. The tongue becomes infected and unusually red. Some alcoholics have white spots on their tongues and these spots are would be cancer growing on the tongue.
2) The Alcoholic’s Mouth: His mouth may develop some infections, which are severely painful. Further, some microbes get attached to the throat and cause a severe infection which makes swallowing and breathing extremely difficult.
3) The Alcoholic’s Stomach: The gastro scope shows that nay-small quantity of alcohol causes an inflammation in the inner membrane of the stomach. Some people believe that a little of alcohol has no harm, but this is scientifically not true. Further, as we know, all alcoholics started with small quantities, then they found themselves chronic cases of alcoholism.
A person who drinks occasionally may become an alcoholic under the pressure of any psychological shock or emotional problem or social crisis. This shows us the wisdom of Allah: in Islam, all alcoholic drinks are prohibited no matter how small the quantity is.
Alcohol, if drunk repeatedly, causes stomach inflammations and the death of stomach cells. As a result, stomach acids decreases and results in bad digestion. Furthermore, many microbes pass without being destroyed by the acid, which is destroyed by alcohol itself. The decrease of the stomach acid leads to a decrease in vitamin B 12 and causes sever anemia. This chronic inflammation of the stomach is accompanied with paleness, fast pulse, and heart failure. Further, this stomach inflammation may develop into stomach cancer.
4) The Alcoholic’s Head: An alcoholic usually has a headache. So he takes a great deal of aspirin and its derivatives. Besides, the alcoholic usually smokes, and his case pushes him into a vicious circle of emotional anxiety. So, aspirin plus cigarettes plus anxiety plus the toxicity of alcohol itself cause a stomach ulcer to the alcoholic.
5) The Alcoholic’s Liver: A person who drinks alcoholic for ten years will most probably have problems in his liver. In the liver, the alcohol hits the nucleus of the cells there first. When the nuclei of the liver cells die, the cells die and cease to multiply. Besides, the liver fails to oxidize fats, which therefore gather in and around the liver. This gathering will end up with the complete failure of the liver.
Because of alcohol, the liver cannot transform carbohydrates, proteins, fats and fails to remove poisons from the body especially ammonia. This will cause the increase of the ratio of poisons in the blood. These poisons affect the activity of the brain and disturb the drunkard’s emotions, behavior, and mental abilities. An alcoholic person soon fails to write well; his handshakes; his breathing becomes difficult; his belly swells; his temperature rises.
Alcohol and the Brain Damage:
Alcohol hits the brain mercilessly. Firstly, it has direct destructive an aesthetic effect on the brain. Secondly, the brain is damaged by the lack of blood that reaches it owing to the hardening of blood vessels and heart failure. Thirdly, the brain suffers the anemia that accompanies alcoholism. If the brain is damaged, all problems begin to rise. Thus alcoholic drinks affect and damage all the systems of the body.
If a driver is drunker, he cannot control his speed or react to emergency cases. When a man is drunk, he cannot observe, judge, or react well. A drunken person loses much of his mental and physical efficiency, no matter how small the drunken quantity of wine is.
A person who has drunk alcohol loses some of his abilities and senses: he cannot see, taste, or smell as a normal person does. His comprehension ability and muscular balance fall off too. Research has shown that 50% of death cases in some countries are caused directly or indirectly by alcoholic drinks.
Alcohol Leading to More Alcohol:
Alcohol leads to more alcohol. It may easily push its drinker to the catastrophe of alcoholism, which is a fatal blow to both the mind and the body.
What kind of life will a person lead if he has infections, inflammations, ulcers, and cancers everywhere in his body? What kind of life is it when a person loses memory, appetite, mental abilities, and lives in hallucinations?
For all these reasons, scientists and governments now do their best to solve the problem of drunkenness and alcoholic drinks.
Islam did not wait for scientific research to prove the destructive effects of alcohol on human body and human mind. Once you believe in Allah, you accept and submit to His orders, all your problems are solved.
In Islam, the principle is simple, clear and logical: prevention is better than cure. Simply, in Islam, alcohol is not allowed and problems are not given the chance to occur.
Islam guides us to the right way. Allah gave us mind with which we have to choose and bear responsibility. Thanks to Allah, who guided us to the right path.
