—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was asked about al-bit‘, a fermented honey drink which the people of Yemen used to drink. He said, ‘Every drink that intoxicates is forbidden.’”

Muslim in his Sahīh, al-Nasā’ī and others also narrated from Jābir:

“A man from Hubshān in Yemen asked the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—about a drink made from sorghum that they drank in their land, called al-mizr. He asked, ‘Is it intoxicating?’ The man replied, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Every intoxicant is forbidden. Allah has pledged to give whoever drinks intoxicants a drink of the mire of corruption.’” The hadith continues.

These widely transmitted hadiths explicitly establish that every intoxicant is forbidden and is khamr, whatever it is made from. It is not permissible to use any of these substances as medicine.

As for physicians’ claim that a person cannot recover from a particular illness except through one specific medicine, this is an ignorant person’s claim. No one with any knowledge of medicine would say this, let alone someone who knows Allah and His Messenger. Recovery is not tied to a particular cause that ordinarily brings it about in the way that satiety has a particular cause that ordinarily produces it. Allah heals some people without medicine, while He heals others through physical remedies, whether lawful or unlawful. A remedy may also be administered without bringing about recovery because a necessary condition is absent or an impediment is present.

This differs from eating, which is a cause of satiety. Hence Allah has permitted a person in dire necessity to eat unclean foods when extreme hunger compels him to do so: these foods dispel his hunger, and nothing else available will do so; otherwise, he will die or fall ill from hunger. Thus, when they became the only means