“Satan seeks only to stir up enmity and hatred among you through intoxicants and gambling.” As for the enmity caused by intoxicants, when drinkers become intoxicated, they grow unruly and quarrel, as did the Ansari who split Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas’s head with a camel’s jawbone. As for the enmity caused by gambling, Qatadah said: “A man would gamble away his family and his wealth, then remain grief-stricken, deprived of his family and wealth, and enraged with his gambling companions.” (1)

“And to turn you away from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer.” This is because whoever occupies himself with drinking intoxicants or gambling is distracted thereby from the remembrance of Allah, and his prayer is thrown into confusion—as happened to the guests of Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf. A man stepped forward to lead them in the Maghrib prayer 111/b after they had drunk, and recited, “Say: ‘O disbelievers’”: “I worship what you worship,” omitting the word “not.” (2)

“Will you not then desist?” That is: desist. It is a question whose meaning is a command, like His saying, Exalted is He: “Will you then be grateful?” (Surah al-Anbiya, 80).

“And obey Allah and obey the Messenger, and beware”—of unlawful matters and prohibitions. “But if you turn away, then know that Our Messenger’s duty is only to convey the message clearly.”

Concerning the warning against one who drinks intoxicants: Abu al-Qasim Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad al-Furani informed us; Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Abd Allah al-Taysafuni informed us; Abu al-Hasan Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-Mahmudi narrated to us; Abu al-Abbas al-Masarjisi in Nishapur informed us; Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Hanzali informed us; Salih ibn Qudamah informed us: my brother, Abd al-Malik ibn Qudamah, narrated to us