Chapter: The Prescribed Punishment for Consuming Intoxicants

Shaykh al-Islām—may Allah be pleased with him—said:

As for “intoxicating drinks,” the position of the majority of Muslim scholars—the Companions, those who followed them in righteousness, and the other scholars—is that every intoxicant is khamr (wine), all khamr is forbidden, and whatever intoxicates in large quantities is forbidden even in small quantities.

This is the position of Mālik and his followers, al-Shāfi'ī and his followers, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal and his followers. It is also one of the two positions within the school of Abū Hanīfah, and the position preferred by Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, Abū Hanīfah’s disciple, and a number of the school’s leading scholars, such as Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī and others.

This is also the position of al-Awzā'ī and his followers, al-Layth ibn Sa'd and his followers, Ishāq ibn Rāhawayh and his followers, Dāwūd ibn 'Alī and his followers, Abū Thawr and his followers, Ibn Jarīr al-Tabarī and his followers, and other Muslim scholars and imams of the religion.

A group of scholars from Kufa, such as al-Nakha'ī, al-Sha'bī, Abū Hanīfah, Sharīk, and others, held that, in the case of intoxicating drinks derived from sources other than the two trees—the date palm and the grapevine—such as drinks made from wheat, barley, sorghum, honey, mares’ milk, and the like, the prohibition applies only to