Given its well-known dangers, contemporary physicians are unanimous that smoking is harmful and that one must avoid it. Even many of the advanced, perceptive non-Muslim nations now prohibit it. Smoking is categorically banned in public places, and in private gatherings it is likewise forbidden unless the smoker first seeks the consent of everyone present—and if they refuse, he must desist, for the smoke harms both the smoker and the by-stander. They have gone so far that, as several airline captains related to me, once their aircraft enter the airspace of certain non-Muslim countries the crew and passengers all stop smoking; not out of religious devotion, but because of its harm and in deference to those countries’ regulations.

How regrettable that such concern should be found among disbelievers while, among many Muslims today, a man will brazenly pull out a cigarette and smoke without the slightest regard for those around him. This is forbidden for two reasons: first, because he is injuring himself, and second, because he is harming the believers. People are genuinely bothered by it, and Allah the Exalted has said: “Those who harm believing men and believing women without their having earned it have borne upon themselves a calumny and a manifest sin” (Qur’an 33:58).

The smoker is therefore injuring others; the smoke that surrounds them enters their bodies and harms them as well. It is unlawful for a person to purchase anything he intends to smoke, and by doing so he incurs sin and persists in disobedience. His uprightness is forfeited, and his legal guardianship over those under his care is nullified. Many scholars even state that if a man smokes, he is not qualified to act as guardian in marrying off his daughter, for he has abandoned uprightness and entered into iniquity, and an open sinner has no guardianship. The matter is thus grave.

Another form of wasting wealth is to spend it on things that bring no benefit—on games and the like, including fireworks.