Taroudant- Egyptian cleric Sheikh Rashid Mustafa made a controversial statement claiming that drinking alcohol is not haram (forbidden under Islam), and “those who say that it is haraam lie to God.”
During a television interview with the Egyptian television channel Attahrir (liberation), the Egyptian cleric, who works as imam of a mosque in Sydney, said that the Holy Quran only prohibits drunkenness, but not alcohol.
The cleric claimed that there is no prohibition regarding alcohol, but only excessive drinking. To defend his claims, he used a verse in the Quran that reads, “O you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying…” Chapter (4) s?rat l-nis?a (The Women).
He added that if alcohol was prohibited, God would state a punishment in the Quran for those who drink it.
“There is no punishment for drinking alcohol,” he claimed.
Since the beginning of Islam, Muslim scholars have unanimously agreed that alcohol is prohibited. Muslims base their judgment on some verses of the Quran in which God urges Muslims to avoid drinking alcohol.
“O you who have believed, indeed, intoxicants, gambling, [sacrificing on] stone alters [to other than Allah], and divining arrows are but defilement from the work of Satan, so avoid it that you may be successful. Satan only wants to cause between you animosity and hatred through intoxicants and gambling and to avert you from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. So will you not desist?” (Verses 90 and 91of Surat Surat Al-M?'idah).
The prohibition of alcohol in Islam is also based on a saying (Hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), in which he said “Whatever intoxicates in large quantities, a small quantity of it is forbidden.”
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