to implement whenever the ruler deems it appropriate.

By this he was rebutting those who claim that the eighty lashes were established by a unanimous agreement of the Companions.

As for the Council of Senior Scholars, its Resolution No. 53 dated 4/4/1397 AH contains the following points:
1 – By unanimous consensus, the punishment for drinking wine is a fixed ḥadd, not a discretionary taʿzīr.
2 – The stipulated ḥadd is eighty lashes, as determined by the majority of the council members.
3 – The council further resolved that the full penalty be carried out in a single session and not divided.

The Ummah is unanimously agreed that anyone who becomes intoxicated by any type of intoxicant incurs the ḥadd. It is likewise unanimously agreed that whoever drinks fermented grape juice incurs the ḥadd even if the drink does not make him drunk.

The great majority of scholars, early and late, hold that whatever intoxicates in large quantity is forbidden in small quantity as well, regardless of the source—whether from grape juice, dates, wheat, barley, or anything else. This view is transmitted from ʿUmar, ʿAlī, Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿUmar, Abū Hurayrah, Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, Anas ibn Mālik, and ʿĀʾishah, may Allah be pleased with them all.

It was also adopted by ʿAṭāʾ, Mujāhid, Ṭāwūs, al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, Qatādah, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and is the doctrine of the three imams—Aḥmad, al-Shāfiʿī, and Mālik—and their followers. Abū Thawr and Isḥāq held the same view, and it is the legal opinion issued by later Ḥanafīs.

The scholars of Kufa, however, maintain that the drinker of an intoxicant other than grape wine is not subject to the ḥadd unless the beverage actually causes intoxication. Once intoxication occurs, we have already noted the consensus that the ḥadd must be enforced.

Their only argument is that, in their view, the word khamr in its literal sense applies exclusively to fermented grape juice, while other beverages are included only figuratively; they support their position with certain hadiths.