a measure of pleasure: the ensuing harms and the joys he forfeits are many times greater, as those who have experienced this know. The same applies to all other forbidden things.

The following also makes clear that “gambling” was not prohibited merely because it involves consuming wealth unjustly—although consuming wealth unjustly is forbidden even apart from gambling, so how much more so when it occurs through gambling. Rather, as with wine, there is another reason for its prohibition besides consuming wealth unjustly: Allah has coupled wine with gambling and made the reason for prohibiting one the same as the reason for prohibiting the other. It is well known that wine was not prohibited merely because it involves consuming wealth unjustly, although consuming its proceeds does constitute consuming wealth unjustly. The same therefore applies to gambling.

This is illustrated by the fact that when people first asked the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, about wine and gambling, Allah Most High revealed:

“They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, ‘In them is great sin and benefits for people, but their sin is greater than their benefit.’”

The “benefits” they offered have been understood to mean financial gain; others have understood them to mean pleasure. It is well known that wine offered both: people benefited from its sale and trade, just as they benefited from the pleasure of drinking it. Then, when the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prohibited wine, he

“cursed wine, the one who presses it, the one who has it pressed, its seller, its buyer, its carrier, the one to whom it is carried, the one who serves it, the one who drinks it, and the one who consumes its proceeds.”

Likewise, people benefited from “gambling” through the money they obtained from it and the pleasure they derived from playing.

Then Allah Most High said:

“But their sin is greater than their benefit,”

because the loss in