to the point that it has driven many people insane, and it makes the liver like suftaj. Those whom it has not driven insane have nevertheless suffered diminished reason. Even after they sober up, some impairment of their reason inevitably remains. Moreover, large quantities cause intoxication that turns a person away from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. Although it does not embolden its consumer to fight and exchange insults, it is evil enough that, when he becomes intoxicated by it, it turns him away from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. A small quantity, even if it does not intoxicate, is like a small quantity of wine.

Furthermore, it brings upon its consumer a degree of humiliation, baseness of character, and unrestrained desire that wine does not. It thus has harmful effects absent from wine, although wine has a harmful effect absent from it: belligerence. Hashish therefore deserves prohibition even more than wine, because the harm its consumer inflicts upon himself is greater than that caused by wine, whereas the wine drinker’s harm to others is greater. In these times, however, the widespread consumption of hashish has made its harm to others greater than that of wine.

Allah has forbidden prohibited things because they harm those who engage in them. Were they to harm others without harming the person engaging in them, He would not have forbidden them. An envious person, for example, is harmed by the good fortune of the person he envies, yet Allah has not forbidden the attainment of distinction merely to spare the envious person that harm.

Moreover, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Every intoxicant is wine, and every intoxicant is forbidden.”

Hashish is intoxicating. Even if no wording specifically encompassed it, it would still contain the harmful effects for which wine was forbidden, besides other harmful effects not found in wine that require its prohibition. And Allah knows best.