Is smoking among the major prohibited acts?

‘Major Muharramat’ being the major prohibitions in Islam, these are acts or things which are prohibited. These include the topics of fornication, adultery, boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, alcohol and pork and Riba. There are other related topics, which as a new Muslim you need to know about and you need to be working on. Again as I mentioned before, it is better that you become a Muslim even though you may be attached or addicted to these things and you can’t let them go at the moment. But it is still better for you to become a Muslim and work on it, get over it than for you not to become a Muslim until such time as you’re able to give these things up.

Smoking is widespread. You may find a lot of Muslims doing it, smoking cigarettes. We spoke about smoking Marijuana before, because we said that’s clearly forbidden. It comes under the heading of intoxicants. So, the prohibition of alcohol is also prohibition of Marijuana or any other thing cocaine or any of the other intoxicants, whatever form they may come. Well now we’re looking at smoking. Smoking prohibited primarily because of the fact that it causes cancer and cancer causes death. There’re other factors which indicates smoking is also or does contain intoxicants in some cases. From the Islamic perspective, it also involved in wastage of wealth which is also prohibited in Islamic law and the harm to others, again prohibited in Islamic law. Primarily the main reason for its prohibition, obvious prohibition, is that it causes death. And in Islam, suicide is prohibited. I know you might feel that your smoking a cigarette isn’t an act of suicide, you’re not killing yourself. But, from the Islamic perspective, if you take anything knowing that it will kill you, eventually is likely to kill you, then that is forbidden. Even though you don’t die immediately when you take it, for example, if you take a little drop of poison each day, for example, you like the taste of this poison. You’re not gonna go and take a full tablespoon, because that will kill you. So, instead you only take a little drop from an eyedropper, you drop a little bit in your food, it makes your food taste nice and you enjoy. But you know it will accumulate in your system. Scientists have shown us, proven that overtime it will reach a point that you will die. You’re likely to die. Then for you, though it may be after 10 years or 15 years eventually your body reaches a point and you die, you’ve committed suicide. Suicide doesn’t necessarily mean that you just do it right on the spot, take gun and you shoot yourself. So, once you’re taking something which is harmful to you, you know it’s clearly harmful and of course you might say, “But there’re so many things harmful”. Genetically modified foods, sugar all these things don’t normally kill people, normally, people don’t die from them. When people take excesses of these things, it will kill them or could kill them or could harm them. So these are not normal things which will normally kill a person. But in excess we know so many things can kill you. Even drinking water. If you drink water and keep drinking water in a day you just keep drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking there reaches a point where the electrolytes in your own system become out of balance and you can die from drinking water. So, what we’re talking about is something else. Smoking causes cancer. Now this is something which was open to debate before the 70s when scientists felt that it is likely causing this. Another scientist working for the tobacco companies argued that it didn’t. But once they reached that critical point where the evidences were sufficient to show without any shadow of a doubt that smoking causes cancer, then it became something haram, forbidden in Islam. Because Allah tells us in the Qur’an,

“...Do not throw yourself into destruction with your own hands...” [1]

 So, from the Islamic perspective it is forbidden. And I know some of you might have said, “But we are… this good person that we know Muslim who helped us to find us Islam he smokes” or “They’re selling it in the stores here” or “People told us you can buy it in Makkah”. That’s irrelevant, the fact that people in ignorance or whatever reason may still be selling it and it’s accessible to the public, it doesn’t change the fact of what it is. It doesn’t change the fact of what it actually is. So, you have to try to give it up. If you’re addicted to it, you’ve to put that in your mind that you must give it up. The best thing is to give it up, as they say ‘cold turkey’, you just stop. Put it away. Leave it one time. However, if you find yourself incapable, you need to get some nicotine patches whatever. Not to feed your system as you try to get out of the habit, then you do what is necessary. But know that it is something which you should give up.

I know you may find some Muslims will tell you. “No, it’s just Makrooh, it’s just disliked, it’s not really forbidden”. Well, there was an old ruling in Islamic law that it was disliked. Because of the fact that scholars, scientists at that time didn’t know that it caused death. So, they ruled according to its more obvious harms which seem to be on a lower level. It caused bad breath. It caused discoloration of teeth and hands. This was the smell and the physical discoloration. So, it was Makrooh because in Islam we want to stay clean, look clean. So, things which will prevent that or things which will cause bad breath when you come to the mosque and you’re in a congregational gatherings etc., it's something offensive. So on the basis of that they said disliked. Once the knowledge came to the scholars that it is something which causes death, then the ruling had to change. Because this ruling was based on the knowledge that we have. And some people might argue with you saying that, “Well not everybody smokes dies”, there’s a lady who lived the longest in China. She lived to the age of 113 and they asked her the secret of her longevity. She said, “Well in terms of my lifestyle I smoke a cigarette, a cigar everyday”. Ok, look at that, “She smoked a cigarette everyday and she lived to 113”. Well, the point is that she was an exception. We don’t make rules based on exceptions, you can find in the Guiness Book of World Records that there’s a man who jumps out of an airplane at 40,000 feet whose ripcord did not work. So his parachute did not open and he hit the ground and survived it. Now are you going to jump out of an airplane without a parachute saying insha' Allah, like that man survived, I could survive. No, not here. You’re going to assume that when you jump out of that airplane you gonna die. Because, most people, 99% of people who jump out of airplanes and their parachute don’t work, they die. So you don’t build on that exception that it is okay to go and do this thing, put your life in jeopardy. It’s not that way. So, similarly we don’t use the fact that Allah is the greatest and he ultimately decides when people die. And that He chooses that this person would live until 113 years. Even though she was doing something which was dangerous to her health, which kill other people didn’t kill her. Allah leaves these signs to let us know ultimately it is all in His hands. But, we have a responsibility to look after ourselves. So don’t let the acts of Muslims around you, now raise doubts in your mind as to whether smoking is forbidden of not. It is forbidden, it is a sin in Islam and you should try to put it aside. Stop.

Reference:

[1] [Qur’an 2:195]