Wine, Gambling and Divining Arrows

Allah then speaks of other matters of ḥalāl and ḥarām. What is now discussed is the ḥarām — that which is ḥarām by default. Allah says:

Ḥarām to you are intoxicants, wine. Maysir, gambling. Anṣāb. Azlām. These are the azlām — and this is why the pronunciations "Izlam" and "Muzlim", "Muzlims", as people say them, should not be used. "Izlam is a great religion" — even some Muslims now say it that way. The meaning is different. The word Islam comes from salām; azlām — or "Izlam", however one chooses to say it — comes from this notion, the practice of divining arrows. The people kept a quiver of arrows, generally of different kinds, and their practice was this: whenever a decision had to be taken, they would put a hand into the quiver and draw out an arrow. If it bore a certain sign — some were marked with red or white, a cut, a slash, or different feathers; each had his own — if it came out to be of the teak wood, or the beech wood, then: I should not do this; it is bad. They did it for divination. That is what azlām is, and all of it is ḥarām. But they believed in it.

It is one thing to toss a coin to decide which of two — merely for that; that is permissible. It is like drawing lots, since no efficacy is attributed to it: it is only a way of settling the matter and letting someone begin. Here, by contrast, they truly believed in the efficacy — that these arrows told them something. Or they did it with birds: releasing a bird and letting it fly, and if it flew to the right it was a good sign, a good omen, and if it flew to the left, a bad one. It was not, then, a matter of reaching a decision; rather, an efficacy was understood to reside in these arrows, or in these birds — that something was in them, that something was directing them in that way. Allah (swt) therefore says that all of this is rijs — filth, impurity — min ʿamali al-shayṭān, of the doing of the shayṭān; keep away from it, so that you may attain success.

He says this of several things: of khamr, of maysir, gambling, and the rest. After that Allah says, in verse 91:

The shayṭān wishes to create enmity and hatred among you by means of wine and gambling, for that is what they do. The intoxicant is drunk, and then there is what a person may do in that state: he will not distinguish between his wife and his mother, and may beat someone, or say something foolish, and the like. That is what the shayṭān wishes to bring about; it is a true work of the shayṭān. Yet people love it. It is hard to believe that in this country, when many industries and many kinds of shop and supply were placed under lockdown, the off-licences — liquor stores — were at first shut, and then suddenly opened again, as an exception. That was made an exception, that these should remain open: people need something, perhaps, to calm themselves with. SubḥānAllāh.

When a Muslim goes into a store — into Costco, for instance, where there are two or three major aisles of liquor — he thinks only: al-ḥamdu li-llāh, I need not even look at these. Consider how much money is saved, how much grief and how much anxiety, merely by being Muslims who do not drink. Whoever drinks, and thinks he must drink, must then buy the champagne, or the bubbly, or whatever it is — the wine to calm the nerves — become intoxicated; then the troubles of drink-driving. For an observant Muslim that is simply not a chapter of life. And when that switch is not on — if it has never been on — it is not even a difficulty. The main thing for Muslims, therefore, especially the younger folk, is never to let that window open by having tasted it at all; for then one may wish to keep returning to it. When one has never tasted it, and cares nothing for it, and repugnance and hatred of it are in the heart, it does not so much as trouble one. That is the best way to avoid it — to have immunity, rather — with the switch simply off, so that one does not even feel the desire. To be tempted yet unable, and so obliged to keep resisting, is harder than simply not feeling any desire at all. Al-ḥamdu li-llāh. May Allah remove that desire for these ḥarām things from our hearts. Allāhumma-kfinā bi-ḥalālika ʿan ḥarāmik: O Allah, suffice us with the ḥalāl, away from the ḥarām; wa-aghninā bi-faḍlika ʿamman siwāk.

Allah (swt) then continues: wa-yaṣuddakum ʿan dhikri Allāh — a further evil of these things is that they keep you from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. How is one to pray? Many who do such things say that they cannot pray, that they are not clean, and the like. Fa-hal antum muntahūn: will you, then, desist?

Wa-aṭīʿū Allāha wa-aṭīʿū al-rasūla wa-ḥdharū: obey Allah and obey the Messenger, and be on your guard. Fa-in tawallaytum… and so it continues.