like the man who said, “When I die, burn me, then scatter me in the sea”—then his case rests with Allah Most High.

As Allah Most High says:

“O you who believe, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying.” Surah al-Nisā’ 4:43.

He thus made knowing what one is saying the point at which the rulings concerning intoxication cease to apply. So long as a person does not know what he is saying, he remains intoxicated; once he knows what he is saying, he is no longer subject to those rulings. This is a fundamental principle that must be upheld, and this is how the majority of scholars define an intoxicated person.

Ahmad ibn Hanbal adopted the criterion he related from Sa‘īd ibn Jubayr: “When he cannot distinguish his own clothes from those of others, or his own sandals from theirs.” He thus made the criterion an inability to distinguish one’s own garment from another’s. Al-Shāfi‘ī is reported to have said: “When his otherwise coherent speech becomes confused and he divulges his closely guarded secrets.”

Intoxication combines two elements: pleasure and loss of discernment. Whoever seeks intoxication may seek either or both, and is sinful in doing so. The soul has desires and appetites whose fulfilment brings it pleasure. Reason and knowledge of the harm those actions cause in this world and the Hereafter restrain it from pursuing them. When reason, its guardian, is lost, the soul gives free rein to its desires.