the hadith. (1) Moreover, it is soundly reported through several routes that he said, “Every drink that intoxicates is wine,” and, “Every intoxicant is wine.” (2) ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him—once addressed the people from the Prophet’s pulpit before the Emigrants and the Helpers, proclaiming, “Wine is whatever clouds the mind.” Thereafter Allah revealed the prohibition of wine, and the cause for that revelation was the beverage the people of Madinah were then drinking. They had nothing to drink except fadikh—a fermented date brew—and no grape wine at all.

There were, however, certain eminent men of the ummah—renowned for both knowledge and practice—from Kufa who believed that nothing qualifies as wine except that made from grapes, and that a beverage prepared from anything other than grapes or dates is unlawful only in the amount that produces intoxication. They therefore drank what they considered lawful.

Accordingly, it is impermissible to say that such people fall under the threatened punishment, for they had an excuse grounded in their interpretive reasoning, or in other mitigating factors. Likewise, one may not claim that the drink they consumed was something other than the very wine whose drinker is cursed,