Thursday 17 July 2008

Smokers, are ye listening?

We've all heard smokers and their lame excuses for continuing their bad habit. Among them include:
  • "I've been smoking since I was 15 but I have never been diagnosed with cancer.
  • "You're only a child, what do you know?"
  • "Everyone will eventually die, whether we smoke or not."
  • "There's no mention of smoking being forbidden in the Quran or by the Prophet."
It's universally accepted that smoking has many serious health hazards. I'm not going to bother listing them down, but in case you might want to have a look, they're right here.
Alright then, I'm going to concentrate on the last point. For those who're not aware of this, there's a concept called ijthihaad in Islam in which a group of well-respected, prominent Muslim scholars make an agreement over certain issues that weren't explicitly highlighted during the days of the Prophet. Among these issues is smoking. Based upon the following verses from the Quran, and the sayings of the Prophet (pbuh), the scholars have come to a conclusion.

"...make not your own hands contribute to your destruction..." (Surah al-Baqarah 2:195)
"Whomsoever drinks poison, thereby killing himself, will sip this poison forever and ever in the fire of Jahannum (Hell)." (Prophet Muhammad)

"Those who annoy believing men and women undeservedly bear on themselves a glaring sin" (Surat al-Ahzaab 33:58)
"there should be neither harming, nor reciprocating harm.” In another hadith, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "Anyone who believes in Allah and the Last Day should not hurt his neighbor."

"...But spend not wastefully (your wealth) in the manner of a spendthrift. Verily spendthrifts are brothers of the devils...” {Surah al-Israa’ 17:26-27}
And in an authentic hadith the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that: "Allah hates for you three things: gossiping, begging, and wasting money."

(Taken from islam.about.com)

We know that tobacco, nicotine, carbon monoxide etc are harmful substances. Thus, smoking is a way of pumping poison into our bodies. It's basically slow suicide. Also, smoking makes passive smokers, i.e those around a smoking person, will feel the effects to some extent. Lastly, but not least, it wastes money. In the USA alone, it is estimated that a staggering 150 billion dollars are wasted on cigarettes, cigars etc.

I listened to a lecture by Abdul Raheem Green, and he said that pumping toxins into our bodies will mean that our prayers (i.e the 5 daily prayers) won't be accepted for 40 days, and that this applies to smoking as well. Scary, eh? Especially when we look at the alarming number of Maldivians who smoke daily.
So, adding this all up, most scholars have agreed upon the fact that smoking is haram (forbidden). There still are some ignorant people who hold on to the claim that it is merely makrooh (discouraged), but what do they know? So, my fellow Muslims, if you smoke, just quit! If you're non Muslim then I don't care, just stay away from us while you're smoking.
Here's a Q&A session with Dr Zakir Naik that you can watch. Smoking is mentioned in this.


5 comments:

.mini said...

its sad that people cannot understand it
my dad still smokes
i cannot go through the whole its forbidden speech with him
atleast for now, he doesn't smoke around me

stuffed pigeon said...

and check this out!
1. Phillip Morris is the largest tobacco & cigarette manufacturing company in the world.

2. Phillip Morris donates 12% of its profits to Israel.

3. If 400 million Muslims smoke a packet of cigarette each on average per day (average cost per packet being $2.00) - only us Muslims contribute $ 800 million to the Phillip Morris company.

4. Let us assume 10% profit on this amount, which sums up to $ 80 million. 5. 12 % of the profits go to Israel - 12% of $80 million = $ 9.6 million.

$ 9.6 million per day!

This is the amount that we Muslims are contributing to Israel and helping them kill our children in Palestine.
Jaza aka Allah khaeeran for ur work

Iya said...

people smoke. non smokers will always say its disgusting. sure its unhealthy. smokers know its unhealthy too. but they smoke anyway because they like it.

i've been smoke free for almost two months now. but i understand what drives smokers. dont judge them. they are people too.

Imma said...

i never said smokers aren't people, or that i judge them.
i only brought up this topic when i found out about the position of smoking in islam, and to notify my fellow muslims about it.
so u smoke because u like it, even though u know its wrong..its a rather weak statement in my opinion, i mean, parteys do drugs coz they like it.. and i honestly don't care even if u continue smoking. just remember that it wasn't me who declared toxic substances to be haram in islam. its allah's judgement we should care about, no one else's.

Anonymous said...

i love listening to Zakir Naik...im a big fan of him.

I really liked your views on smoking and i wanna say thank you. i just wish there were more youngsters like u in the Maldives.