Your decisive ruling concerning wine.” Thereupon Allah Most High revealed the prohibition of wine in Sūrat al-Mā'idah, concluding with His words: “Will you not then desist?”

This was a few days after the Battle of the Confederates. Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “We have desisted, our Lord.” Anas said, “Wine was forbidden when no indulgence was more cherished by the Arabs than it, and nothing had been forbidden to them more severely than wine.” (1)

[Ibn Umar, may Allah be pleased with them both, reported: “When the verse in Sūrat al-Mā'idah was revealed [34/], wine was forbidden. We took the wine jars out into the road and poured out what they contained. Some of us broke his jar after emptying it, while others washed it with water and clay. The lanes of Medina remained drenched with it for some time; then, when rain fell, the colour of the wine became visible in them and its scent arose.”] (4)

Abd al-Wahid ibn Ahmad al-Mulayhi informed us; Ahmad ibn Abd Allah al-Nu'aymi informed us; Muhammad ibn Yusuf informed us; Muhammad ibn Isma'il informed us; Ya'qub ibn Ibrahim informed us; Ibn Ulayyah informed us; Abd al-Aziz ibn Suhayb said: Anas ibn Malik said to me, “We had no wine other than your fadikh, a date-based intoxicating drink. I was standing, serving Abu Talhah and so-and-so and so-and-so, when a man came and said, ‘Wine has been forbidden.’ They said, ‘Anas, pour out these large jars.’” He said, “After hearing the man’s report, they neither asked about it nor reconsidered it.” (6)

It is reported from Anas that it was called khamr because they would leave it in large jars until it fermented and changed. Ibn al-Musayyab said: because it was left until its clear part became clear and its sediment settled.

The jurists differed over what constitutes khamr. One group said: it is grape juice or fresh-date juice that has become strong and fermented without being cooked over a fire. The leading jurists unanimously agreed that this wine is ritually impure; its drinker is liable to the prescribed legal punishment and is deemed morally corrupt, while whoever holds it to be lawful is a disbeliever.

Sufyan al-Thawri, Abu Hanifah, and a group of scholars held that the prohibition does not extend beyond this, and that beverages made from things other than these two—such as wheat, barley, millet, honey, and sugar confection—are not forbidden unless they are consumed to the point of intoxication, in which case they are forbidden. They further said that if grape or fresh-date juice is cooked until half of it has evaporated, it is lawful, though disliked; and if it is cooked until two-thirds have evaporated, it is lawful and permitted to drink, though intoxication from it remains forbidden. They cited the report that Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, wrote to some of his governors: “Provide the Muslims with boiled grape must from which two-thirds have evaporated and one-third remains.”

Abu Ubaydah and Mu'adh considered boiled grape must permissible to drink when reduced to one-third.

Another group said that once juice is cooked, even slightly, it becomes lawful; this was the view of Isma'il ibn Ulayyah.

Most scholars held that every beverage whose large quantity intoxicates is khamr; thus, even a small quantity of it is forbidden, and its drinker is liable to the prescribed legal punishment.