“A beautiful woman said, ‘You will have a sexual intercourse with me, or drink wine, or kill this child.’ The person preferred wine and killed the child.” Is there a hadith like that?

Dear Brother / Sister,

According to what is reported from Hz. Uthman, the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said,

“Avoid khamr (intoxicants/alcoholic drinks) because it is the mother of all evils. 

There was a man among those who came before you who was a devoted worshipper. An immoral woman fell in love with him. She sent her slave girl to him, saying: ‘We are calling you to bear witness.’

So, the man set out with her slave girl and reached her house. Every time he entered a door, she locked it behind him, until he reached a beautiful woman who has with her a boy and a vessel of wine. The woman said to the man,

'By Allah, I did not call you to bear witness, rather I called you to have intercourse with me, or to drink a cup of this wine, or to kill this boy. You have to do one of them.'

Thereupon, the man preferred to drink wine and drank until he became drunk. When he became drunk, he had intercourse with her and killed the boy so that he would not tell anybody about what he did.

So, avoid khamr because, by Allah, faith and addiction to khamr cannot coexist; one of them will soon expel the other.” (see Nasai, Ashriba, 44; Abdurrazzaq b.  Hammam, Musannaf, 9/236; Ibn Hibban, Sahih, 12/168; Bayhaqi, Shu'abul-Iman, 5/10)

This narration is important in that it shows that the sin of drinking alcohol leads to other sins. The explanation “Avoid khamr (intoxicants/alcoholic drinks) because it is the mother of all evils” at the beginning of the hadith informs us about it. The example given in the hadith took place in the past and it is very important in that it shows how the sin of drinking alcohol leads to other sins. Today, many people utter excuses like "I was drunk; I did not know about it; I do not remember" after committing sins, which is similar to the case narrated in the hadith.

“Satan´s plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer: will ye not then abstain?” (al-Maida, 5/91)

As a matter of fact, attention is drawn to the harms caused by sins like alcohol and gambling and the destruction they will cause in the community in the verse above and it is stated that it is necessary to keep away from them.

When Hz. Umar and the other Companions heard this verse for the first time, they said, "We have abstained, O Lord, we have abstained."

Accordingly, no matter what it is called by people, anything that intoxicates people is haram, whether a little amount of it is taken or a lot of it. The Prophet (pbuh) states the following regarding the issue:

“Anything that intoxicates is alcoholic drink and anything that intoxicates is haram." (Bukhari, Adab, 80; Muslim, Ashriba, 73-75, 64, 69)

There is ijma (consensus) that alcoholic drinks are haram (forbidden).

Another verse regarding the issue is as follows:

“O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination, - of Satan´s handwork: eschew such (abomination), that ye may prosper." (al-Maida, 5/90)

All kinds of intoxicants and gambling are rendered haram in the verse above. When that verse was sent down, all of the Muslims poured wine into the streets of Madinah, broke the vessels of wine and gave up the habit of drinking without any hesitation in the face of this definite command of the Quran.

The word "intoxicant" used in the translation of the verse is the equivalent of the word "khamr". In this sense, khamr means something that covers the mind. All kinds of drinks and narcotics with this quality are included in the scope of khamr.

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