the spiritual path,” then his offense is greater and more serious. This is akin to the religion of the Christians who seek nearness to Allah by drinking wine, and to the belief of those who regard indecencies as acts of devotion and obedience.

Allah Most High says:

“When they commit an indecency, they say, ‘We found our fathers doing it, and Allah has commanded us to do it.’ Say, ‘Allah does not command indecency. Do you say about Allah what you do not know?’”

As for someone who ignorantly regards it as lawful, despite having heard the jurists, and says:

“They forbade it without rational or transmitted proof,
Yet forbidding what is not forbidden is itself forbidden”—

such a person does not know Allah and His Messenger, nor does he know that it is forbidden and that becoming intoxicated by it is forbidden by consensus. If he learns this but refuses to acknowledge its prohibition, he becomes an unbeliever and an apostate, as explained above.

Everything that deprives a person of reason is forbidden, even if it produces neither euphoria nor exhilaration, for depriving oneself of reason is forbidden by the consensus of the Muslims. As for taking banj without becoming intoxicated or losing one’s reason, it incurs discretionary punishment.

The jurists who have carefully examined the matter recognize that hashish is intoxicating. The wicked consume it precisely because of the euphoria and exhilaration it produces; in this respect, it shares the effects of intoxicating drink. Wine induces agitation and quarrelling, whereas hashish induces lethargy and abasement. In addition, it corrupts the physical constitution and the mind, arouses lust, and causes a loss of protective jealousy—effects that make it worse than intoxicating drink. It only appeared among people with the emergence of the Tatars.