Wine — Good or Bad ?

We read the mis­sion­ary claim regard­ing this sup­posed ​“con­tra­dic­tion” as follows :

Is wine good or bad ? Is us for­bid­den on earth some­thing that is tru­ly good ? Or is in Par­adise not only allowed but pro­vid­ed in over­flow­ing mea­sures (rivers of…) some­thing that is so bad that it is even called ​“Satan’s handiwork”? 

Response

We believe that there can be no sub­sti­tute for the igno­rance exhib­it­ed, and that these con­coct­ed ​“prob­lems” of the Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies is due to their sheer inabil­i­ty of under­stand­ing how tafsir is per­formed. In response to this alleged ​“con­tra­dic­tion” in the afore­men­tioned vers­es, we would like to cite Harun Yahya’s ​“How Do The Unwise Inter­pret The Qur’an?” in order for the issue to be duly addressed :

Wine-drink­ing in Heaven 

One of the top­ics unwise peo­ple por­tray as a con­tra­dic­tion is how wine is served in Heav­en when it is for­bid­den in this world. The verse that they use to make their claim reads :

“An image of the Gar­den which is promised to those who have fear for God : in it there are rivers of water which will nev­er spoil and rivers of milk whose taste will nev­er change and rivers of wine, delight­ful to all who drink it, and rivers of hon­ey of undi­lut­ed puri­ty ; in it they will have fruit of every kind and for­give­ness from their Lord. Is that like those who will be in the Fire time­less­ly, for ever, with boil­ing water to drink which lac­er­ates their bow­els?” (Surah Muham­mad : 15) 

As pre­vi­ous­ly explained, this type of error of per­cep­tion occurs when one is prej­u­diced, delib­er­ate­ly per­verse, unable to rea­son, and has not grasped the Qur’an as a whole. Now, let us exam­ine why such a thought­less claim is illog­i­cal and base­less from sev­er­al angles :

First of all, we are able to see that there is a dif­fer­ence between the drink served in Heav­en and the one of this world from the fol­low­ing verse :

“With gob­lets, (shin­ing) beakers, and cups (filled) out of clear-flow­ing foun­tains : No after-ache will they receive there­from, nor will they suf­fer intox­i­ca­tion.” (Surat al-Waqi’ah : 18 – 19) 

As can be seen, the drinks served in Heav­en do not have any of the neg­a­tive effects and attrib­ut­es that alco­holic drinks in this world do. As men­tioned in the verse, they do not cause headaches or con­fuse the mind. This means that even though they give plea­sure, they do not in any way cause drunk­en­ness or ill­ness. So there is not the least incon­sis­ten­cy in such a drink being offered in Heaven.

Alco­holic drinks in this world, on the oth­er hand, have always been por­trayed in the Qur’an togeth­er with their many dam­ag­ing and harm­ful attrib­ut­es. Some of the vers­es that describe the destruc­tive and neg­a­tive nature of alco­holic drinks in this world are :

“You who have faith ! Wine and gam­bling, stone altars and divin­ing arrows are filth from the hand­i­work of Satan. Avoid them com­plete­ly so that hope­ful­ly you will be suc­cess­ful. Satan wants to stir up enmi­ty and hatred between you by means of wine and gam­bling, and to debar you from remem­brance of God and from prayer. Will you not then give them up?” (Surat al-Ma’i­dah : 90 – 91) 

“They will ask you about wine and gam­bling. Say, ​‘There is great sin in both of them and also cer­tain ben­e­fits for mankind. But the sin in them is greater than the ben­e­fit.’ ” (Surat al-Baqarah : 219)

Obvi­ous­ly, it can­not be expect­ed that char­ac­ter­is­tics of drinks that are for­bid­den in this world could exist in Heav­en­ly ones. As God describes the Heav­en­ly drinks, He empha­sizes once more that they do not con­tain the harm­ful attrib­ut­es of those in this world :

“…a cup from a flow­ing spring pass­ing round among them, as white as dri­ven snow, deli­cious to those who drink, which has no headache in it and does not leave them stu­pe­fied.” (Surat as-Saf­fat : 45 – 47) 

The log­ic of any­one who sees this top­ic as a con­tra­dic­tion when God has made it all so clear must be seri­ous­ly doubt­ed. It is one of the Qur’an’s mir­a­cles that when a per­son approach­es it with igno­rance and ulte­ri­or motives, he will be inca­pable of under­stand­ing even the most obvi­ous of top­ics. God describes the case of such a per­son in one of His verses :

“No self can have faith except with God’s per­mis­sion. He places a blight on those who do not use their intel­lect.” (Surah Yunus : 100) 

Sec­ond­ly, in the Ara­bic text of the Qur’an the word khamr which stands for the word wine and all alco­holic drinks as we know them, is only men­tioned in the above verse num­ber 15 from Surah Muham­mad as a drink served in Heav­en. In all the oth­er vers­es of the Qur’an, the word ​“sharab” is used for heav­en­ly drinks, and means any type of drink in Ara­bic. In some Eng­lish trans­la­tions, the word sharab is trans­lat­ed as wine, where­as in Ara­bic it orig­i­nates from the word ​“sherebe” and can be used to mean any non-alco­holic drink as well. One of the Qur’an­ic vers­es in which this word is men­tioned where it means any drink is :

“Where they will recline, call­ing for plen­ti­ful fruit and drink (sharab)…” (Surah Sad : 51) 

“They will wear green gar­ments of fine silk and rich bro­cade. They will be adorned with sil­ver bracelets. And their Lord will give them to drink of a pure draught (sharab) to drink.” (Surat al-Insan : 21) 

Exe­ge­sis of Qur’an 56:19 accord­ing to the Mus­lim Commentators

The fol­low­ing are a col­lec­tion of cita­tions from the ear­ly Mus­lim com­men­ta­tors on the afore­men­tioned verse to sup­ple­ment Harun Yahya’s expla­na­tion. If this proves any­thing, it shows that mis­sion­ar­ies nev­er both­er con­fer­ring Mus­lim sources when­ev­er a ​“con­tra­dic­tion” appears to them.

Ibn Kathir

“la yusad­da’un ​‘anha wa la yun­z­i­fun” — Their heads do not suf­fer from aches and their minds are not lost ; they are even sta­ble in asso­ci­a­tion with extreme enjoy­ment and pleas­ant taste. Ad-Dahak relat­ed on author­i­ty of Ibn Abbas that he said : Wine (khamr) has four char­ac­ters : intox­i­ca­tion, headache, vom­it­ing and (void­ing) urine ; Allah (glo­ry be to Him) has men­tioned the wine of Par­adise and exalt­ed it above these char­ac­ters. Mujahid, ​‘Ikri­ma, Sa’eed Ibn Jubair, ​‘Atiyyah, Qata­da and As-Sadi said about ​“la yusad­da’un ​‘anha” there is no headache in it. They said about ​“wa la yun­z­i­fun” it means it does not cause loss of mind to them.Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vol. 7, p. 330

Al-Qur­tubi

“la yusad­da’un ​‘anha” — Their heads do not suf­fer from aches due to drink­ing it mean­ing that it is a plea­sure with­out harm on the con­trary of the earth­ly drink. ​“wa la yun­z­i­fun” — It has been dis­cussed in (Surat) As-Safat and it means that they do not get intox­i­cat­ed till they lose their minds.Tafsir-ul-Qur­tubi, Vol. 17, p. 170

Imam An-Nasafi

“la yusad­da’un ​‘anha” — Because of it. The real­i­ty of this expres­sion is that it does not cause headache to them or that they are not sep­a­rat­ed from it. ​“wa la yun­z­i­fun” — They do not get intox­i­cat­ed. Man has nazaf i.e., his mind is lost due to intox­i­ca­tion.Tafsir-un-Nasafi, Vol. 2, p. 636

As-Suyu­ti and Al-Mahalli

It means that it does not cause headache or loss of mind to them on the con­trary of the earth­ly wine (khamr).As-Suyu­ti and Al-Mahal­li, Tafsir-ul-Galalin, p. 516

Az-Zamakhshari, Al-Baidawi and Ash-Shawkani gave sim­i­lar state­ments in their respec­tive tafsir of the Qur’an.See Az-Zamakhshari, Tafsir-ul-Kashaf, Vol. 4, p. 331 ; Tafsir-ul-Baidawi, Vol. 5, p. 247 and Ash-Shawkani, Fath-ul-Qadir, Vol. 5, p. 199

Con­clu­sions

We have quot­ed Harun Yahya’s expla­na­tion of this so-called ​“con­tra­dic­tion” and sup­ple­ment­ed it with addi­tion­al cita­tions from the Mus­lim com­men­ta­tors. Their method­ol­o­gy is con­sis­tent with the tra­di­tion­al method of Qur’an­ic exe­ge­sis, i.e., al-Qur’an yufas­siru ba’­duhu ba’­dan (dif­fer­ent parts of the Qur’an explain each oth­er). What is giv­en in a gen­er­al way in one place is dis­cussed in detail in some oth­er place in the Qur’an. What is dealt with briefly at one place is expand­ed in some oth­er place.

And only God knows best !