Islam & the Modern World · Intoxicants, Gambling & Addiction
What alcohol costs Britain
Handle with care. Handle with care: many people you speak to have alcohol in their family. Attack the product, never the person.
In short
- 1.ONS records alcohol-specific deaths in the UK at the highest levels since the series began in 2001.
- 2.Government estimates put the annual cost to society in the tens of billions of pounds.
- 3.Islam's rule is total: what intoxicates in large amounts is forbidden in small amounts.
The claim being examined
Alcohol is treated as a harmless national habit, and abstaining is treated as the odd choice.
The Islamic position
Islam prohibits it outright, and the measured public cost is the reason that prohibition looks less strange than it sounds.
Analysis
Use official sources only, because this argument is won on numbers and lost on exaggeration. The Office for National Statistics publishes annual alcohol-specific deaths for the UK and has reported record levels in recent years, with a marked rise since 2019; that is a strong, citable fact. NHS England's Statistics on Alcohol reports hospital admissions attributable to alcohol, and successive Home Office and Public Health England reviews — notably the 2016 Public Health England evidence review — estimate the annual societal cost in the tens of billions of pounds when health, crime and lost productivity are counted. The Institute of Alcohol Studies publishes work on alcohol's role in violent crime and domestic abuse. Present the harm as measured and public rather than moralised. On the Islamic side, the prohibition arrived in stages (Q 2:219, then Q 4:43, then Q 5:90-91), which is worth mentioning as an example of gradual reform of an entrenched habit. The rule extends beyond wine by the principle in Sunan Abu Dawud 3681, that whatever intoxicates in large quantity is forbidden in small quantity, and the prohibition in Sunan Ibn Majah 3380 reaches the seller and the carrier as well as the drinker.
From the Qur'an
إِنَّمَا الْخَمْرُ وَالْمَيْسِرُ ... رِجْسٌ مِّنْ عَمَلِ الشَّيْطَانِ فَاجْتَنِبُوهُ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ
Intoxicants and gambling are an abomination of Satan's doing, so avoid it that you may be successful.
لَا تَقْرَبُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَأَنتُمْ سُكَارَىٰ
Do not approach prayer while intoxicated.
From the Bible
Hebrew
Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.
Read it in their BibleFrom the Sunnah
Whatever intoxicates in large amounts, a small amount of it is forbidden.
Sources
Office for National Statistics, Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK · Public Health England, The Public Health Burden of Alcohol (2016) · Office for National Statistics, Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK (annual series)
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