101 Reasons Why We Left Islam – Chapter 1: Abrogation– Reason 3
According to the chronological order of the Quran, the narrations of the Hadiths, and other Islamic sources, alcohol was permissible in the first 12 years of the prophethood in Mecca. Allah first began to have an issue with alcohol in the Quran after prophet Mohammed migrated to Medina.
Will it surprise you to know that the Quran spoke favorably about alcoholic drinks?
“And from the fruits of palm trees and grapevines you obtain intoxicating drinks and good provision. Surely, in this is a sign for those who understand.” Quran 16:67
There will be people who will argue that there is no abrogation here because the English translated Tafsir tries to paint that the verse talks about how we can make good things from fruit (as good provisions) or make something bad from it such as intoxicants. If you read it, you will see it is not the case. The Arabic Tafisr makes no apologies when it clearly says:
“The correct view is that this was before the prohibition of alcohol, so it was abrogated. This verse is Meccan according to the agreement of the scholars, and the prohibition of alcohol is Medinan.” https://quran.com/16:67/tafsirs/ar-tafseer-al-qurtubi (Requires translation. In the first paragraph, after you see the number 116)
So, what happened? Why was alcohol gradually banned? According to Hadith and Tafsir; Umar, one of the prominent companions of prophet, asked Allah repeatedly to “give them a clear ruling on alcoholic drinks” in three different times until it became prohibited.(Musnad Ahmad, Book 2, Hadith 279 /sahih, Tafsir Ibn Al Kathir 2.219-220)
So, after the first request of Umar, Allah revealed a verse where He discouraged alcohol consumption but didn’t prohibit:
“They ask you concerning wine and gambling. Say: “In them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit.”(2:219)
This says, there is something good in alcohol but there is more bad than good. This is what most Western societies say about alcohol, meaning drink it but drink it in moderation. Then, the rule of discouragement was replaced with a limited prohibition. Muslims were still allowed to drink as long as they did not come to prayer drunk:
“O you who have faith, do not approach the prayer while you are intoxicated, until you know what you are saying” (4:43)
Notice, it is saying you can still approach prayer once you sober. No complete prohibition. And finally, the partial prohibition mentioned in the earlier verse abrogated by full prohibition. The final verse on prohibition of alcohol revealed near the end of the prophethood which also proves that alcohol was permissible in Islam almost in the whole 23 years of the prophethood career of Mohammed:
“O you who have faith, intoxicants, gambling, idolatrous sacrifices, and divining arrows are the disgrace of the work of Satan, so stay away from them that you may succeed.” (5:90)
To corroborate this sequence, check the Appendix for Table 1 and you will find the following: Chapter 16 is the 70th Surah to come down, followed by Chapter 2 as 87th, Chapter 4 as 92nd, and finally Chapter 5 as 112th. You cannot make this up.
We are not going to argue against the gradual banning of alcohol being a good thing that helps people to slowly wean pre-Islamic practice out of an addiction. We are concerned more with the process itself being a human process.
Issue 3.1. Why does the All-Powerful Allah not care about alcohol and its intoxicating effects in the first 12 years? I would have expected a discouragement from day one rather than having a Meccan verse praising it! It is one thing to say, it was gradual but for something that was decided before the start of time, neither Christians no Jews had this radical ban. Picture this: People were drinking and going to pray for 12 years, and Allah did not care. People were heading into battle drunk, and the angels were supposedly supporting them, and Allah did not care. There were scribes around the Prophet, who drank while writing the verses of the Quran, and Allah did not care. Even Muhammad, by his resistance to initially support Umar, did not see the need to ban.
Issue 3.2. Why does Allah need Umar to prompt the Prophet to get these verses ‘issued’! It is confusing that Allah would place a verse that praises the intoxication that comes from alcohol and require us to fix its meaning through the Tafsir (a human process) and later declare it as abrogated. This is because after the abrogation of the ruling to drink, Islam came down very hard on alcohol- harder than anything you would imagine. We describe it as devil, evil, dirty (Najis), and all sorts of things. None of this makes sense in the context that we see.
Apologist Responses:
Issue 3.1. Allah was weaning people out of alcohol, and it was His approach. We now know that weaning out of an addiction is far better than completely banning it as it can have serious consequences. Furthermore, Jews ban alcohol, and some Christians ban alcohol such as Methodists, Baptists, Evangelicals, Pentecostals…and others. Islam was consistent with the true message of banning alcohol. You are speculating how drunk people were back then.
>> Our response: We already acknowledged that the stages of the alcohol are not the issue. The issue is 12 years before the very first stage of banning. If the Quran started from year one around the first 10 verses of the Quran to say “Avoid alcohol as Allah will later on have a clear ruling on this” then you would have an argument to make. You are deflecting from addressing the issue of the first 12 years of Islam. It is a common Islamic misconception that Jews ban alcohol, they don’t. They allow control consumption of alcohol. The same regarding the Christian denominations you mentioned. For example, Baptists have different beliefs where the majority accept moderate drinking as long as it does not reach drunkenness. Finally, our speculation of drunkenness of people comes from fact we have a verse asking people not to approach prayer drunk (4:43). The Quran would not say this if it was not for the fact people were arriving to the mosque to pray completely hammered from drinking that they could not pray properly!
Issue 3.2: The interpretation you presented for verse 16:67 is fabricated and not accurate. Most scholars agree that the verse talks about how one thing (such as grapes) could be turned into a good provision OR bad things such as intoxicating drink. The tafsir is a human process and Al Qurtubi (and others) might be wrong to assume it is praising alcohol. Allah may inspire people to bring about change and Umar was very much loved as one of the best companions of Allah. Thus, if on some occasions it was Umar to instigate a change, we do not see issues here.
>>Our response: In hindsight, Islamic scholars had to find a way to fix that verse because it was in complete contrast to what became a fundamental ruling in Islam. We did not come up with the suggestion that the verse praises intoxication, we proved to you that Al Qurtubi, a very respected scholar saw it that way. Al Qurtubi cites Ibn Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle and person who was around when these verses came down to also suggest this is an abrogated verse because it suggests praise to the intoxication of alcohol. Records show that many Khalifahs of Islam drank alcohol including Abu Bakr, Uthman, Muawiya I, and Abd al-Malik Bin Marwan to name few. You may argue that Allah inspired Umar, and that is your prospective. We see this as part of the human process that Allah did not need Umar or anyone else to inspire His prophet to ban something we consider now so dirty!
Final Thoughts:
To say alcohol is completely bad and dirty is wrong. Vinegar has some percentage of alcohol (0.25 to 0.5%) and cultures around the world use it. In fact, some food naturally has alcohol in them such as ripe bananas (0.2 to 0.4%), bread such as burger breads and rolls (1.1 to 1.2%), Yogurt & Kefir (0.05% to 2%). Alcohol is a sterilizer and for thousands of years, societies created beer and wine because they can store these better as the alcohol kills the bacteria and viruses making it a much safer drink. Alcohol is used in medicine, hospitals, surgeries, and factories in a variety of roles. An umbrella study, a study even bigger than a meta-study that looks at all the publications, concluded moderate drinking of wine has far more benefits than harm. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9115901/