they were to be put to death. The same applies to herbal hashish: whoever consumes it while believing it to be forbidden is subject to the prescribed punishment of eighty or forty lashes. This is the correct view.

Some jurists hesitated to prescribe flogging because they thought that it impaired reason without causing intoxication, like banj (a stupefying plant) and similar substances that cloud the mind without intoxication. All such substances are forbidden by the consensus of the Muslims. If a substance is intoxicating, it entails the flogging prescribed for wine; if it is not intoxicating, it entails a lesser discretionary punishment. Whoever believes such substances to be lawful becomes a disbeliever and is put to death.

The correct view is that hashish is intoxicating like wine: those who consume it become intoxicated and consume it in large quantities, unlike banj and other such substances, which neither cause intoxication nor arouse desire for them. The rule in Islamic law is that forbidden acts which people crave, such as drinking wine and unlawful sexual intercourse, entail a prescribed punishment, whereas those they do not crave, such as eating carrion, entail discretionary punishment.

“Hashish” is something its users crave and refuse to give up. The prohibitions in the Quran and Sunnah apply to those who consume it just as they apply to those who consume other forbidden substances. Its consumption only became widespread around the time of the emergence of the Tatars: it appeared, and with it appeared the sword of the Tatars.

He—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked:

What is the ruling concerning someone who takes some grapes, adds various aromatic ingredients, then boils the mixture until it is reduced by a third and drinks it for medicinal purposes, becoming intoxicated whenever he drinks a large quantity?