Why can't you drink alcohol?

This is a fun one, because if we’re speaking strictly about whether or not I can drink, the answer is that I actually could if I wanted to. In fact, there are multiple arguments, including a very old theological argument, that would allow me to drink if I agreed with them. The theological argument says that I can’t drink wine, but harder spirits like grain alcohols, would be totally fine. This may sound ridiculous, but it’s an argument posed by more learned theologians than I could ever hope to be. And it’s an argument I reject. But to understand why, we need to talk about the letter of the law versus its spirit (I’d say “no pun intended” but since I literally have a pun-making award named after me, who am I kidding?).

To start, when we say “drink” what are we talking about? Alcohol? How much? What kind? Well, for Muslims the prohibition is against khamr. Arabic is a Semitic language with verb roots for most words, and this particular word is drawn from a root meaning fermentation. It is therefore understood to mean alcoholic beverages in general. And most Muslims, and the vast consensus (if that’s important to you), is that alcoholic beverages are haram (forbidden). So it’s easy, then, alcoholic beverages shouldn’t be drunk by Muslims because everyone agrees they shouldn’t be. Oh would that it were so easy. You see there was one school of Islamic jurisprudence that decided that beverages made from fermented grapes and dates, wine and arak, were clearly khamr but that other forms of alcoholic beverages weren’t explicitly included under that term. So that means that drinking alcoholic beverages made from other things are fine (as long as you didn’t drink them to get drunk, since drunkenness is explicitly prohibited like the khamr itself).

So by splitting hairs on the definition of what exactly is khamr, and separating the drinking of alcohol from the act of getting drunk, the Hanafi school of Islamic interpretation would have made beer, whiskey, and vodka acceptable beverages for Muslims to consume. If you’re in ancient Egypt, and have just angered Ra, that could be a very handy dispensation.

Fun side story, did you know that in ancient Egyptian mythology, the goddess Sekhmet was once unleashed upon humanity as punishment for their impiety, and as the lion-headed face of Hathor got a taste for human blood, she became insatiable. Lady slaughter, unrelenting in her hunger for her human prey was unstoppable, and set to extinguish humanity from existence. And she would have gotten away with it too, had it not been for Ra taking pity on those darn kids and giving humans the secret to restoring her calm. And that’s one story for how the world got beer. Jinkies!

The story of Sekhmet and Egyptians’ invention of beer might sound like a whimsical tale used by beer’s inventors to promote the beverage they created, but it can be seen in a more literal light when you remember that beer was basically liquid bread that helped make stored water less likely to kill people. When you imagine an ancient world where towns and cities could be struck down by a cholera outbreak, or the British navy extending its ships’ reach by turning to grog instead of stagnant water, the life- and civilization-changing impact of this beverage is hard to ignore. And the story of Sekhmet (death) being tamed by an alcoholic beverage, goes from a fun episode of Scooby-Doo, to taking on a much more serious hue.

That is all to say that a bunch of scholars finding a way to justify alcoholic beverages is not as unusual as it might first seem. And then there’s the question of what Egyptians call faucets. The formal Arabic word for a faucet is a sanbur, but in Egypt they would be called a hanafeyah. But why? Because once upon a time, a hot theological debate erupted around what kind of water should be used for performing wudu, ablutions, aka the ritual washing before prayers. You see, there was this newfangled technology that provided water readily to you. These faucets were a radical departure from the good old-fashioned pump-action well/river-attached mechanisms. And while the new faucets lacked the cardio benefits of the hand pumps, they were darned convenient. Suspiciously convenient for some schools of interpretation. Which schools? Well, three of the four biggest ones actually opposed the use of tap water.

The one school that permitted it was the Hanafi school, and that’s why the most populous Arabic-speaking nation on earth calls a faucet, a hanafeyah. Eventually, the consensus shifted to this minority view. But we were talking about alcohol. As you might have guessed already, the minority school of interpretation that had the foresight to embrace modern plumbing ahead of the others is actually the same one that split hairs about which alcoholic beverages counted as khamr. So maybe they shouldn’t be dismissed so easily?

But the truth is, theological hair-splitting aside, the idea that only certain alcoholic beverages are permitted isn’t an argument I find convincing. And not just because it’s not particularly consistent. But more importantly, because I don’t have to. The opinions of the other schools, to which the vast consensus has settled, is that a hadith (a saying by the Prophet) declaring all that intoxicates to be khamr, and all khamr to be haram, refutes the Hanafi interpretation. And while scholars can argue about the relative strength of different hadiths’ provenance chains, this particular hadith is widely accepted. So I don’t have an issue with the consensus view.

I mention provenance, and the ability to dispute and debate the strength of the evidence deeming a particular hadith authentic or not, because it’s a pretty big deal. Especially to Sunni Muslims (the majority of Muslims) who are called that because they take as their guiding principle for deciding theological contentions the simple question: what would the Prophet have done here? You see, sunna is a word that means example (as in an example you follow). So figuring out whether one hadith is more likely to be authentic when compared to another (that seems to contradict it for the question at hand), is a crucial question. So the “alcoholic beverages are haram” camp has a strong case, backed by the consensus among the vast majority of schools of interpretation, and yet none of that forces me - especially as a Sunni Muslim - to accept the consensus.

You see, here’s the important reason why any Sunni cleric telling anyone that they must accept his opinion, is a charlatan. Regardless of their opinion, that very attitude is a contradiction to what they’re supposed to stand for. Unlike Shia strains of Islam, where there is a clerical hierarchy of authority, Sunni “clerics” call themselves ‘ulama. The word means those who “know,” and is derived from the same root as the Arabic word for science (which in English also originates from a word meaning “knowing”). In other words, Sunni “clerics” are called scientists (or more accurately in modern English usage, “scholars”) to emphasize their learned status, without implying theological authority (which would have been traditionally the role of an authority who was granted the mantle of a kadi - a judge - by the governance system of their local society, and would usually be expected to be learned, and so a scholar would not be a bad fit).

The thing to note in such a situation is that there is no such thing as a religious authority figure in Sunni Islam. And that’s exactly why Sunni Muslims are asked to ask themselves “what would the Prophet do?” and not “ask your local moral supervisor?”

“There are no religious authorities for Sunni Muslims” might seem like a strange thing to say when there are clearly religious bodies, like Al Azhar, that are widely respected and hailed as the supreme authorities for Sunni Islam. But the subtle distinction between a theocracy’s clerics, and a body of scholars who are supposed to command respect through their wisdom and scholarship, is actually vast, and requires a supreme level of mendacity to bridge. And that’s not my subjective personal opinion.

“I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam” — Muhammad Abduh (a leading Sunni scholar at Al Azhar, who went on to become the Grand Mufti of Egypt. That civil service job meant he was the top authority on theological questions, and arbiter when needed as a matter of law, for the government of Egypt)

Speaking of hadiths that are widely accepted as authoritative, another one asks Muslims to seek their fatwas (religious opinions) ultimately from their own hearts, even if they get opinions from others. This principle doesn’t mean that everyone gets to make up their own laws. But it does mean that for moral questions that you believe are ultimately judged by your creator, your heart should be the decider because ultimately only you take responsibility in that moment. That is, of course, presuming you believe in a creator (which, conveniently enough, is exactly one of those moral questions over which no earthly authority can practically claim jurisdiction, and thus is a matter for your own heart).

And there are many questions where a religious scholar who decides to impose their will on others, simply cannot. For Muslims, and Sunni Muslims in particular, that’s particularly true when the sunna upon which they have been taught to lean for their decisions includes stories of unlawful drunkenness being deemed unpunishable by the ruling caliph not because the drunkenness hadn’t happened, but because the caliph in question had invaded the privacy of the inebriated man who’d been drinking in his own home. So when I say that the majority and consensus opinions do not force me to abstain, I mean that for the following three reasons:

1. If I wanted a theological justification to drink, I could find one.
2. If I wanted to drink, and defy the consensus religious opinions of the different schools of interpretation, they couldn’t really stop me (even if it was illegal in my community) without breaking their own rules.
3. They couldn’t even claim the authority to judge my heart without becoming the very thing their own name prohibits them from becoming.

So why don’t I drink? Because I’m a Sunni Muslim who believes the ultimate responsibility for that decision is my own. And because I believe that all responsibility for any decision I make, is ultimately mine. And if a beverage that isn’t medicinally needed to keep me healthy and alive on an ocean voyage, or helping me stave off water-borne illnesses, is something that could diminish my judgment, then I choose not to do so. Not because I’m a buzzkill who can’t have a good time, but because I don’t want to miss a moment of this brief existence I get to experience. I don’t drink because I don’t want to risk ever blaming something to which I voluntarily relinquish my agency and judgment, for the consequences of any decision I make.

That might seem like a dark note to end this essay upon, but it isn’t. And it helps inform why I find arguments about “AI run amok” so infuriating. They all ultimately sound like a drunk driver blaming the alcohol for their accident. Yes, some information automation technologies can cause great harm. And when we recklessly abuse each other via data processing and automation technologies, or are harmed by charlatans who exploit such technologies and general public ignorance for narrow short-term gains and selfish advantage, we are still ultimately the victims not of “AI run amok” but simply other people. We can voluntarily relinquish control, but never responsibility or accountability. The moment we forget that is the moment we decide to blame the drink for the consequences of our choice to drink.

So I don’t drink, not because my religion prohibits it, but rather, because I believe it would, and because I believe any attempt to diminish my accountability for my choices would shame my heart.

“Consult your heart. Righteousness is that about which the soul feels at ease and the heart feels tranquil. And wrongdoing is that which wavers in the soul and causes uneasiness in the breast, even though people have repeatedly given you their legal opinion [in its favor].” — Islamic Hadith

Postscript: Did you know the arabic word for joy or celebration is farah. That means that a celebration for the introduction of new water taps could be called a farah-faucet (with apologies to the handful of 80s kids who get that terrible pun, but I wanted to emphasize why a bad pun award was once named after me).