Thursday, January 22, 2015

5; 90-93, Avoid Intoxication and Gambling

The interesting points about these four verses, as I understand, are:

  • God has asked us to avoid four specific actions of using intoxicating substances, including drinks or drugs, and gambling along with two others that I do not know their contemporary equivalents. 

  • God has clearly described these four as Satanic acts because, as God explains, Satan wants to create animosity and hatred between us and wants to prevent us from keeping our heart attentive to God. I am not sure if we need to provide evidence of these effects as they resonate with anyone who has, at some point in life, had an addiction to alcohol, drugs or gambling. Provided that we will be honest with ourselves, these clues depict the true internal devastation caused by these actions.

  • Despite the fact that God has strongly advised us to keep away from them, it seems that these verses imply alcoholism, drug abuse and addiction to gambling have always been and will be a fact of life and they cannot ever be deleted or totally banned.  The reason I infer so is firstly, God has not called these actions “Haram” (forbidden by God) neither in these verses nor anywhere else in Quran.  Secondly verse 93 states that if believers have found themselves involved in any of these satanic actions, on the condition that they keep away from them for God and be persistent in doing good deeds, they are not sinners.   (I know that traditionally this verse only applies to those who have done these actions before the revelation has come at the time. I believe we are all encountering Quran’s revelations continuously in our personal life.) 

  • Another important and clear reading of these few verses is that God has not asked anyone to police others or to force them against their will in spite of explaining the harms.  There is also no punishment determined anywhere in Quran for drinking alcohol, drug use or gambling.   In other words, these are personal choices with severe consequences.  

  • In verses 92 and 99 of this chapter, it is explicitly mentioned that the Prophet has no responsibility but to inform human being of God’s message even if they may disobey God.   This is an extremely important message which completely refutes using force or violence in order to enforce God’s rules on others which is ,perhaps, the main motivation behind Islamic fundamentalism. 

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