beverage prepared by human hands. Whether the quantity he consumed was small or large, whether it actually intoxicated him or not, whether he vomited or did not, whether he lost his reason or remained lucid—so long as the drink is of a kind whose larger amount would intoxicate—he is liable to the ḥadd: eighty lashes with a whip laid bare on his back, like the other prescribed punishments. He is neither imprisoned nor banished. If the offender is a male slave, his prescribed punishment is forty lashes, and the same holds for a female slave. The drunkard is not flogged until he has recovered his senses.

Whoever is compelled to drink wine incurs no penalty, while the one who forced him is subject to a painful discretionary punishment—unless he too drank, in which case the ḥadd applies to him.

If a person assumed that a certain nabidh (fermented beverage) was harmless, felt no sign of intoxication, and then discovered it to be intoxicating and became drunk from it, no ḥadd is imposed, provided he is trustworthy and not suspected of deceit. However, once he knows its true nature, if he still raises the cup to his mouth and drinks, the ḥadd becomes obligatory.

Should two witnesses testify at different times—one saying, “I testify that he drank it in Shaʿbān,” and the other, “I testify that he drank it in Ramaḍān”—the ḥadd is established, just as it would be if one said he drank from a glass vessel and the other from a wooden one. Likewise, if they testify to the smell of wine with certainty and are competent to identify it, the offender is flogged.

A master may carry out the ḥadd for wine on his male or female slave; if the matter is brought to the imam or judge, that is commendable.

There is no ḥadd on a person who becomes intoxicated from food or milk and has committed no sin, God willing, though it is disliked to deliberately consume anything that removes one’s reason.