of the Muslims—the Tatars, Georgians, and others like them—and would say: When they drink, it does not turn them away from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer, but rather from disbelief and corruption in the land. Moreover, it sows enmity and hatred among them, which benefits the Muslims. Their sobriety is therefore worse than their intoxication, and there is no good in helping them become sober. Indeed, it may be recommended or obligatory to avert their evil by whatever means are possible, whether intoxication or otherwise.

This concerns the disbelievers. Among wicked oppressors, too, there are those whose conduct when sober—neglecting obligations, failing to give people their due, committing forbidden acts, and violating people’s lives and property—is worse than their intoxication. If someone neglects the remembrance of Allah and prayer while intoxicated, but does what I have described while sober, and if, when sober, he wages wars and stirs up strife, his drinking entails no greater evil than that. Furthermore, if, while intoxicated, he refrains from wronging people in their lives, property, and womenfolk, and gives away wealth acquired in a manner involving some unlawfulness, so that people benefit from it, he would incur less punishment than someone who is sober but violates people’s lives, property, and womenfolk and withholds the rights he is obliged to fulfil.