Chapter on Wine Drinking
This offense will be examined under three headings: (1) the act that incurs liability, (2) the punishment required, and (3) the evidentiary standard by which the offense is proved.
- The Act that Incurs Liability (al-mūjib)
The jurists agree that simply drinking wine of one’s own volition—whether a little or a lot—renders a person liable. They differ, however, concerning other intoxicants.
• The scholars of the Ḥijāz hold that such drinks share wine’s ruling: they are prohibited, and the ḥadd becomes obligatory on anyone who consumes them, regardless of quantity or whether actual intoxication occurs.
• The scholars of Iraq maintain that what is forbidden in their case is intoxication itself, and only that state obliges the ḥadd. The principal proofs advanced by both sides have already been set out in the Book of Foods and Drinks.
- The Punishment Required (al-wājib)
The punishment is the ḥadd together with declaring the offender a fāsiq, unless he repents. By consensus, a wine drinker is deemed a fāsiq even if he has not reached a state of drunkenness; likewise, anyone who becomes drunk on something other than wine. Those who forbid even small amounts of nabīdh disagree over whether the ḥadd is obligatory. Most of them say it is, though they differ about the number of lashes.
• The majority say the ḥadd is eighty lashes.
• Al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Thawr, and Dāwūd say it is forty.
This concerns the free person. As for the slave, opinions diverge:
• The majority: his ḥadd is half that of the free person.
• The Ẓāhirīs: the ḥadd is the same for free and slave alike—forty.
• Al-Shāfiʿī: twenty.
• Those who set the full amount at eighty: forty.
The majority rely on ʿUmar’s consultation with the Companions when wine drinking became widespread in his time and on ʿAlī’s advice—may Allah be pleased with him—to fix the ḥadd at eighty by analogy with the ḥadd for slander, for, as is reported from him: “When he drinks, he becomes drunk; when he is drunk, he babbles; and when he babbles, he fabricates.”
The second group argues that the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—never set a fixed ḥadd for this; rather, offenders were beaten in his presence with sandals in an unfixed number of blows. It is related that Abū Bakr—may Allah be pleased with him—asked the Companions, “How many blows did the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—inflict on those who drank wine?” They estimated them at forty.
Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī narrates that “the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—beat wine drinkers with two sandals, forty times,” after which ʿUmar replaced each sandal with a whip.
Another chain from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, more reliable than the foregoing, states that “the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—…"