Alcohol and Islam: an overview

Contemporary Drug Problems 33/Winter 2006 523 

Alcohol and Islam: an overview 

BY LAURENCE MICHALAK 

AND KAREN TROCKI 

Alcohol and Islam is a relatively understudied topic, although 

alcohol abuse is a significant social problem both in Muslim 

majority countries and among Muslim minorities. Questions of 

religious identity as they relate to food and drink prescriptions and 

proscriptions also make alcohol and Islam a worthwhile topic. This 

article offers a general overview of alcohol and Islam. It briefly 

introduces alcohol and Islam in history; examines the main Islamic 

religious sources (the Quran, the sayings and practices of the 

Prophet Muhammad, and Islamic law); analyzes World Health 

Organization statistics on contemporary patterns of abstention and 

alcohol consumption in Muslim majority countries; reviews the 

social science literature on alcohol studies in Muslim settings; 

presents Saudi Arabia and Turkey as opposite extremes of 

prohibition and permissiveness in Muslim majority countries; offers 

France as a case study of the effects of migration on abstention and 

drinking patterns of Muslims in minority settings (about a quarter 

of all Muslims live as religious minorities); and looks at the 

rationales that some Muslims give for drinking. In conclusion, the 

article places the problem of alcohol prohibition in a larger context 

AUTHORS' NOTE.- An early version of this article was presented at the 

28th Annual Alcohol Epidemiology Symposium of the Kettil Bruun Society 

for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol, in Paris, June 3-7, 

2002. This research was supported by grants P50 AA05595 (National Alcohol 

Research Center) and 5 T32 AA07240-27 (Research Training) from the 

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to the Alcohol 

Research Croup, Public Health Institute. The authors thank Hamid Algar, 

Atef Al'Sliehri, Mandana Limbert, Mac Marshall, Siddieq Noorzoy, Robert 

Reed, and KBS colleagues for their suggestions and constructive critiques, 

and Shoshana Weiss for bibliographic assistance on alcohol in Israel. 

© 2007 by Federal Legal Publications, Inc.

524 ALCOHOL AND ISLAM 

of how to approach food and drink prescriptions and proscriptions; 

it also cautions against overestimating the influence of Islam, and 

suggests an agenda for future studies of alcohol-related beliefs and 

behaviors among Muslims. 

Which is the worst deed: to kill a man, to rape a woman, or to 

get drunk? Drunkenness is the worst because the drunkard 

will commit both rape and murder. 

—Islamic saying (Aziz Omrane, 

personal communication, Tunis 1992) 

Given the vast literature of books and journals specialized in 

the study of alcohol, the existing scholarship on Islam and 

alcohol seems small. It consists of a modest number of publications 

about alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors of 

Muslims and about alcohol in Islamic doctrine—the former 

from a social science perspective and the latter from a religious 

doctrinal perspective. Since Muslims constitute about a 

fifth of the world's population—about 1.3 billion people—this 

would appear to be an underdeveloped area within alcohol 

studies. The paucity of research in this subfield is in a way not 

surprising because alcohol is forbidden in Islam and Muslim 

countries tend to have low rates of alcohol consumption. Yet 

the topic is important, in part because alcohol abuse among 

Muslims is a significant social problem, both in Muslim countries 

and among Muslims in countries where they are a minority, 

but also because of other considerations besides social 

pathology that make alcohol and Islam a timely topic. 

This article offers an overview of the topic of alcohol and 

Islam, addressing such questions as: What are the patterns of 

alcohol consumption in Muslim countries? What does the 

social science literature teach us about alcohol and Muslims?

525 

What normative behaviors with regard to alcohol are prescribed 

by Islamic textual sources and how did these norms 

evolve? What is the range of practice of Muslims with regard 

to alcohol consumption in different parts of the worid today, 

in both Islamic majority countries and in countries in which 

Muslims are a minority? What happens when Muslims emigrate 

from a country where alcohol is discouraged to a country 

where alcohol is permitted and even positively valued? 

Since Islam forbids alcohol, how do Muslims who drink 

explain their behavior? We conclude with an agenda for suggested 

future studies of alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors 

of Muslims. 

Alcohol and Islam in history 

Paradoxically, it was Muslim chemists who were responsible 

for developing distillation to a high level of sophistication and 

transmitting it to Europe via Spain. Although distillation is a 

process which arose independently in different places in the 

world, Muslims greatly improved distillation technology. In 

the eighth century Muslims developed that distinctively 

shaped apparatus which is a staple of every chemistry laboratory—the 

alembic—for the efficient collection of distillate 

through a descending condensation tube. The words "alembic" 

and "alcohol" both came into English from Arabic (a/- is the 

prefix "the" in Arabic). The word "alcohor' comes from alkuhul, 

Arabic for "powdered antimony," or "a fine powder," 

later "essence," and still later alcool vini,, shortened in the 

nineteenth century to "alcohol." Muslims also developed and 

introduced into Europe the cultivation of sugar cane and an 

efficient process for sugar extraction which, combined with 

distillation technology, gave birth to the production of rum. 

Despite its formal religious prohibition, the consumption of 

alcohol has never been eradicated under Islam. The continuing 

importance of alcohol can be seen through the literatures of 

the areas to which Islam spread. In both Arabic and Persian


poetry the consumption of alcohol remained an important 

theme, even after the introduction of Islam. In the Arab world 

this is attested by the flourishing genre of khamriyya (wine, or 

bacchic) poetry and the work of the ibahi (licentious) poets. 

Abu Nuwas is perhaps the most famous of these early poets 

who glorified wine and drunkenness. Wine also figures prominently 

in the work of Hispano-Arabic poets of the tenth to the 

fifteenth centuries, such as the Cordoban zajal poet Ibn 

Quzman, the satirical muwashshahat poet al-Abyad (who was 

crucified by the Almoravid governor of Cordoba), Ibn Bajja of 

Saragossa, and Ibn Zuhr (the latter two both were poisoned). 

In this poetry, alcohol is often associated with other vices, 

such as homoeroticism with handsome cupbearers (Monroe 

1974). The Persians had a flourishing genre of wine poetry 

before and after Islam—with Sadi, the ghazal poet Hafez, and 

Omar Khayyam, best known among Westerners through 

Edward Fitzgerald's famous (and somewhat inaccurate) translation. 

In the Iranian-influenced world, the consumption of 

wine was part of a courtly tradition—built into the royal job 

description, so to speak. In Persian and Arabic poetry wine is 

often a metaphor which does not necessarily reflect actual 

alcohol consumption, as in the metaphor of drunkenness to 

represent religious ecstasy in mystic Sufi poetry. 

After the death of Muhammad, Islam spread westward across 

North Africa and into Europe, north into the Middle East and 

Central Asia, east into Southeast Asia, and south into sub- 

Saharan Africa. The Ottoman Empire extended Islam into 

Eastern Europe. Under the Arabs and Ottomans, subject peoples 

such as Christians and Jews were usually allowed to 

maintain their traditions, including the production and consumption 

of alcohol, although they had to pay special taxes. 

Thus there has been alcohol production throughout the Islamic 

world for minority groups, combined with different degrees of 

illicit consumption by Muslims.

The religious iiterature on aicohoi and Isiam 

527 

Before we explore the social science literature on alcohol and 

Islam, it is important to examine the Islamic religious 

sources—the Quran, Hadith, Sunna, and Fiqh—for their 

teachings about alcohol. These sources allow us to address 

some important questions, such as: What do the textual 

sources of Islam have to say about alcohol? Is alcohol indeed 

prohibited in Islam? What is the rationale for the prohibition 

of alcohol in Islam? How did this prohibition come about? 

Have Islamic perspectives about alcohol varied over time? 

And, are there doctrinal disagreements within Islam regarding 

alcohol consumption? 

Alcohol and Muslims consider the Quran' as the final revelation of God- to 

the Quran humankind. It is the collected accumulation of divine revelations 

to Muhammad over the course of the latter part of his 

life, beginning when he was 40 and continuing at intervals for 

23 years until his death. To Muslims, the Quran is the culmination 

of revelations to earlier prophets, beginning with Adam 

and continuing through Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and 

others. The Quran mentions 28 prophets by name but suggests 

that there were others as well. Muslims believe that these earlier 

revelations, albeit valid, were incomplete or corrupted in 

their transmission to later generations. Thus Muslims recognize 

both the Jewish and Christian scriptures as divinely 

inspired, but superseded by the Quran. Since the Quran is the 

word-for-word message of God, it is the most primary of all 

sources and has precedence over all other religious texts and 

sources. 

Muslims believe that the Quran cannot be adequately translated. 

Since it comes from God, the very words of the Quran are 

sacred. Even native speakers of Arabic are not sure what some 

of the words and phrases in the Quran mean, since they are in 

a dialect that was spoken in one part of the Arabian Peninsula 

in the early seventh century, with cultural referents that are 

sometimes uncertain. Renderings into other languages, such


as English, are therefore interpretations rather than translations. 

The chronology of the revelations received by 

Muhammad has been inferred by religious scholars, but the 

Quran is not in the chronological order of revelations. Usually, 

but not always, the longer revelations come first in the Quran 

and the shorter ones later. The five aya-s^ of the Quran that 

most directly address the consumption of alcohol are as follows'': 

Ql. They ask thee 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) 

Q2. And from the fruit of the date palm and the vine, ye get out 

wholesome drink and food: behold, in this also is a sign for those 

who are wise. (16:67) 

Q3. O ye who believe! Approach not prayers with a mind befogged, 

until ye can understand all that ye say. . . . (4:43) 

Q4. O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication oO 

stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination,—Of Satan's 

handiwork: Eschew such (abomination) that ye may prosper. (5:93) 

Q5. Satan's plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, 

with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance 

of God, and from prayer: Will ye not then abstain? (5:94) 

The Quranic term khamr is often translated as wine, but has a 

broader meaning, from a root that means "to cover," "to cause 

mental confusion" or "to disturb the mind." Some authors 

have made much of Quranic verses that seem to imply that 

wine is a reward in paradise, and others have raised the question 

of how something that is bad (wine) can be a reward for 

goodness. Examples of such Quranic passages are: "As to the 

Righteous, they shall drink of a Cup [of wine], mixed with 

Kafur [camphor]" (76:5) and "They will be given to drink 

there of a cup [of wine] mixed with Zanjabil [ginger]" 

(76:17); and "Their thirst will be slaked with Pure Wine 

sealed" (83:25). A closer reading of these passages shows that 

the first two do not explicitly mention wine, but a "cup," suggesting 

a metaphorical rather than a literal meaning; there are 

parallels of this usage in Christianity in the New Testament in

Alcohol in the 

Hadith and 

the Sunna 

529 

the gospels of Paul. As for the third passage, some Muslim 

scholars have pointed out that the wine is qualified as "pure," 

suggesting that it may be wine that does not intoxicate. 

The Hadith are sayings attributed to Muhammad, and are an 

important source in Islam. The Quran is the word of God, 

while the Hadith are only the words of the Prophet, but 

Muslims believe that the Prophet did not speak idly. Each 

Hadith includes a chain of authority which takes the form: "A 

said that B said . . . that Mohammad said X." Questions arise 

about the reliability of different Hadith because a given 

reporter in the chain may not have remembered the wording 

correctly, or may even have made up a Hadith. The most 

accepted Hadith are those corroborated by more than one contemporary 

of the Prophet. Among the most accepted Hadith 

there are at least eight relating to alcohol. They are given 

below as numbered and listed in the "Intoxicants" section of 

the Hadith compendium of Qaradawi, with the names of the 

collectors in brackets. 

H254. "Every intoxicant is khamr, and every khamr is haram 

(unlawful). [Muslim] 

H255. "Khamr is that which befogs the mind." [Bukhari, Muslim] 

H256. "Of that which intoxicates in a large amount, a small amount 

is haram" [Ahmad, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi] 

H257. "If a bucketful intoxicates, a sip of it is haram." [Ahmad, Abu 

Dawud, Timridhi] 

H258. "Whosoever believes in Allah and the Last Day must not sit 

at a table at which khamr is consumed." [Ahmad, Tirmidhi] 

H259. "If someone stockpiles grapes during harvest time and holds 

them in order to sell to a Jew or Christian or anyone else (even if he 

be a Muslim) who produces khamr, he will be leaping into the Fire 

with his eyes open." [Tabarani, Hafiz] 

H260. "Truly Allah has cursed khamr and has cursed the one who 

produces it, the one for whom it is produced, the one who drinks it, 

the one who serves it, the one who carries it, the one for whom it is 

carried, the one who sells it, the one who earns from the sale of it, 

the one who buys it, and the one for whom it is bought." [Tirmidhi, 

Ibn Majah]


Development 

of the alcohol 

prohibition in 

Islam 

H261. "Allah has sent down the disease and the cure, and for every 

disease there is a cure. So take medicine but do not use anything 

haram as medicine." [Abu Dawud] 

The Sunna is the practice of Muhammad. It is important 

because the behavior of the Prophet offers a model for 

Muslims to follow, especially in areas of behavior not directly 

addressed by the Quran and the Hadith. Like the sayings of 

the Prophet, the practices of the Prophet have come down 

through oral tradition; similarly, the different accounts of the 

practices of the Prophet have different degrees of reliability. 

The Hadith and the Sunna overlap, because the contexts of the 

Hadith are important to their meanings. Silences are important 

too; for example, when asked about certain practices, the 

Prophet did not reply, suggesting neither approval nor disapproval. 

According to biographers of Muhammad, his practice 

did not include the drinking of strong fermented beverages, an 

issue to which we will return. 

Quranic verses and Hadith suggest that the prohibition against 

alcohol emerged in stages during the later life of the Prophet 

Muhammad. According to Islamic tradition, the period before 

Islam (pejoratively called the jahiliyya, or period of ignorance), 

was characterized by social beliefs and practices in 

Arabia such as polytheism, infanticide, and drunkenness. 

Islam forbids such practices. Behaviors in Islam are categorized 

in a bad-to-good spectrum: 

a) Grave sins {haram) which are strongly forbidden and strongly 

punished. 

b) Mild transgressions which are discouraged but not severely 

punished. 

c) Actions that are neither sins nor good deeds, with respect to 

which Islam is indifferent. 

d) Good deeds which are encouraged, and 

e) Important obligations which are commanded.

Stage one: 

Alcohol not prohibited 

but mildly 

discouraged 

Stage two: 

Alcohol 

prohibited 

for certain 

occasions 

531 

The prescribed behavior with regard to alcohol in Islam apparently 

did not begin as an outright prohibition. The consumption 

of alcohol went from a behavior that was tolerated, then 

discouraged, then forbidden, then strongly forbidden, as can 

be seen in the Quran, the Hadith, and traditions relating to the 

practice of Muhammad and his successors. The progression of 

these three stages is as follows: 

In the early period of revelat'ons to Muhammad there was no 

prohibition against alcohol. Ql is apparently an early revelation, 

a mild injunction associating alcohol with gambling, 

acknowledging that there is some good in both practices, but 

stating that on balance the bad in both outweighs the good. 

The text implies that both should be avoided, but does not go 

so far as to forbid either practice. Similarly, Q2 suggests that 

"those who are wise" will be able to distinguish the "wholesome 

drink and food" of "the date palm and the grape vine," 

implying that the fermented date and grape products might be 

unwholesome, but not explicitly prohibiting them. Ql and Q2 

are both thought to date from the early revelations in Mecca, 

before the Prophet went to Medina. 

Problems arose when some of the followers of Muhammad 

came to prayer having consumed alcohol to the point of 

drunkenness. This led to a prohibition against coming to 

prayer under the influence of alcohol (Q3). This inference fits 

with the Hadith that alcohol covers/fogs the mind (H255). 

Since an observant Muslim prays five times a day, at intervals 

of a few hours, it would be difficult to drink to excess and 

be sober for the next prayer. Revelations Q3, and Q5 are 

thought to have come from the later period, when the Prophet 

was the leader of the community in Yathrib (later known as 

Medina). 

Stage three: Full At a later stage, Muhammad entirely prohibited the drinking 

prohibition of of alcohol at all times, elevating the drinking of alcohol to 

alcohol haram—a severe transgression (Q4 and Q5). Stories of the life 

of Muhammad recount that at that point Muslims threw out all


Alcohol and 

Fiqh (Islamic 

jurisprudence) 

their wine and that the streets of Medina flowed with wine. 

This is reflected by the Hadith that prohibit even moderate 

drinking (H256) and even indirect association with alcohol— 

against dealing in wine grapes (H259), or producing, serving, 

transporting, selling or buying wine or wine grapes (H260), 

and by analogy against any substance which intoxicates or 

clouds the brain (see H254 and 255). The punishment for 

drinking wine was severe—40 stripes of two lashes for first 

offenders, according to a Hadith from Muslim, and more 

severe penalties for repeat offenders. There is disagreement 

over the punishment of repeat offenders by the Prophet himslef; 

in Abu Dawud, the Prophet prescribes the death penalty 

for the third infraction; although another Hadith defers it to 

the fourth infraction; others claim that the Prophet nowhere 

prescribed execution but made the punishment flexible. There 

is general agreement that the usual penalty prescribed by 

Muhammad's first successor, Abu Bakr, was 40 blows with a 

palm branch or a sandal, and that Khalid ibn Walid increased 

this to 80 blows (Wensinck & Sadan 1985). 

Islam is a diverse tradition—not a uniform, monolithic, allencompassing 

code with an unambiguous answer for every 

question. To a certain extent and in certain areas of behavior, 

there are different opinions about what constitutes correct 

Islamic belief and practice. Islamic legal scholarship (fiqh) 

reflects these areas of disagreement and debate. In the midseventh 

century Muslims began to divide into two branches, 

Sunni and Shi'a, initially over the question of succession. What 

had begun as a political difference, succession, gradually 

evolved into doctrinal differences. There are also differences 

within both Sunni and Shi'a jurisprudence. About 90% of 

Muslims are Sunni, which can be described as majoritarian 

Islam. Within Sunni Islam there are four main madhhab-s, or 

schools of jurisprudence, which vary somewhat in their teachings 

relating to alcohol. The Hanbali school, of which the 

Wahabis in contemporary Saudi Arabia are a subgroup, is very 

strict in its prohibition of alcohol. At the other extreme, Hanafi 

jurists interpret the word khamr to mean specific beverages.

533 

Only these specific beverages are forbidden, but not necessarily 

others, so they allow spirits, which of course did not exist at the 

time of Muhammad and so are not mentioned in the Quran. 

Hanbalis also allow nabidh-s (infusions) of raisins and dates, 

even if they ferment, so long as they are drunk "in amounts that 

one believes will not make him drunk" and without bad intentions 

(Hattox 1985:49, 52). Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, 

in Islam there is no hierarchy of religious authority culminating 

in a pope, so there is no way to resolve definitively questions 

about correct practice with regard to alcohol. In alcohol, as in 

other matters, one can address a question to an Islamic scholar 

and receive a fatwa (religious opinion), but different scholars 

sometimes issue contradictory/a 

Most Muslims would agree that alcohol is forbidden, but how 

to apply this prohibition is not always clear. To begin with, 

what is it exactly that is forbidden? Abu Dawud gives a 

Hadith in which Muhammad defines khamr as the product of 

grapes, dates, honey, wheat or barley (to which list the Caliph 

'Umar added millet and left out honey); does this mean that 

alcohol from the fermentation of products other than these is 

allowable? Are liquids that are not explicitly permitted forbidden? 

Or are liquids that are not explicitly forbidden permitted—such 

as rum distilled from sugar made from cane? 

The Prophet is reported to have consumed fermented liquid to 

which water had been added, saying "If these drinks climb to 

your head, break their benefit with water" (Gatje 1996:202, 

206), which would seem to contradict H256 and H257, 

although perhaps not, since the dilution story is from the 

Meccan period. 

Other kinds of questions arise. If wine is forbidden then is 

vinegar, which is a product of wine, (although it does not contain 

alcohol) also forbidden? When a container is used for 

wine is it then contaminated, such that one should not drink 

from it? If the container is thoroughly washed then can one 

use it for another liquid, such as milk? Is a perfume which has 

an alcohol base permitted, since it is for external use only?


Can one take medicines which contain alcohol? If alcoholbased 

medicines are forbidden, are they forbidden even if prescribed 

by a doctor for a life-threatening illness? Can one 

attend a social event at which alcohol is served if one does not 

consume alcohol at the event? If one is offered alcohol, should 

one refuse, or is it acceptable to hold the glass in one's hand 

but not drink from it? 

For such questions, Muslims have recourse to religious scholars. 

The opinion of a Muslim scholar in response to such a 

question is called a fatwa. As has been mentioned earlier, 

Islam has no central authority or hierarchy, so that different 

scholars may give different fatwa-s in response to the same 

question. Muslims follow the scholars whose opinions they 

respect or believe most authoritative, just as Christians of different 

denominations follow different prescribed practices but 

consider themselves co-religionists. 

Alcohol consumption in Muslim countries 

The World Health Organization's annual reports place Muslim 

countries at the bottom of the list in per capita alcohol consumption. 

Table 1 gives statistics on alcohol consumption in 

43 countries with Muslim majorities, excerpted from the most 

recent World Health Organization (WHO) annual report, 

which nevertheless omits some important Muslim countries 

such as Yemen (WHO 2004). Of 189 countries studied by 

WHO, the six with zero reported alcohol consumption are all 

Muslim; the next three countries, with average consumption 

slightly above zero, are also Muslim; and 25 of the 30 countries 

which are lowest in reported alcohol consumption are 

Muslim. All but four of the 43 Muslim countries surveyed are 

below the median in alcohol consumption. Of the four above 

the median, two (Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan) are former 

republics of the USSR with large non-Muslim Russian populations, 

and the other two (Burkina Faso and Lebanon) are 

nearly half non-Muslim (WHO 2004:11-12).

TABLE 1 Muslim majority countries and alcohol consumption 

Country 

(1) 

[ran 

Kuwait 

Libya 

Saudi Arabia 

Somalia 

Bangladesh 

Mauritania 

Pakistan 

Algeria 

Comoros 

Yemen 

Indonesia 

Egypt 

Niger 

Jordan 

Guinea 

Iraq 

Chad 

Sudan 

Morocco 

Tajikistan 

Qatar 

Senegal 

Mali 

Brunei 

Syria 

Tunisia 

Turkmenistan 

Malaysia 

Djibouti 

Oman 

Turkey 

Uzbekistan 

Eritrea 

Maldives 

Gambia 

Albania 

Bahrain 

UAE 

Lebanon 

Burkina Faso 

ICyrgyzstan 

Azerbaijan 

% 

Muslim^ 

(2) 

99.6 

85.0 

97.0 

96.6 

99.0 

88.3 

99.5 

95.0 

99.5 

99.3 

99.9 

87.2 

90.0 

88.7 

96.5 

86.9 

97.0 

53.9 

72.0 

99.8 

85.0 

95.0 

92.0 

90.0 

67.2 

86.0 

99.5 

87.0 

52.9 

97.2 

87.7 

99.8 

88.0 

69.3 

100.0 

50.0 

70.0 

81.8 

96.0 

55.3 

50.0 

70.0 

93.4 

2000/2001, in order of least consumption 

population 

(millions} 

(3) 

67.4 

1.7 

5.0 

21.3 

7.2 

114.1 

1.1 

134.5 

30.4 

0.6 

17.5 

182.5 

60.4 

8.9 

4.8 

6.4 

22.0 

4.5 

25.3 

29.0 

5.4 

0.6 

9.2 

9.6 

0.2 

14.0 

9.5 

4.3 

12.3 

0.4 

2.1 

65.5 

21.8 

2.9 

0.3 

6.0 

2.4 

1.1 

2.9 

2.0 

6.0 

3.4 

7.5 

535 

Recorded Estimated Rate of 

consumption unrecorded last'vear abstainers 

and rank^ consumption imiong adults 

year total male female 

(4) 

0.00(1-6) 

0.00(1-6) 

0.00(1-6) 

O.CO(l-6) 

0.00(1-6) 

0.00(1-6) 

0.01 (7) 

0.02 (8) 

0.03 (9) 

0.08(11-12) 

0.08(11-12) 

0.10(13-14) 

0.10(13-14) 

0.11 (15-16) 

0.11(15-16) 

0.14(17) 

0.20(19) 

0.23 (20) 

0.27(21) 

0.41 (24-5) 

0.41 (24-5) 

0.44 (26) 

0.48 (27) 

0.49 (28-9) 

0.49 (28-9) 

0.62(31) 

0.65 (33) 

0.77 (34) 

.06(41) 

.08 (42) 

.32 (46) 

.48(51) 

.52 (52) 

.54 (53) 

.72(61) 

2.27 (68) 

2.51 (73) 

2.63 (75) 

2.75 (77) 

4.13(95) 

4.38 (97) 

5.50(108) 

(3.94(139) 

(5) 

0.6 

0.3 

I.O 

4.0 

0.4 

0.5 

1.0 

3.4 

2.7 

1.0 

3.0 

3.3 

2.0 

1.9 

(6) 

1995 

1995 

1995 

2000-1 

2000-1 

1995 

1995 

1995 

2000-1 

1995 

1995 

2000-1 

1995 

1995 

2000-1 

1995 

1995 

(7) 

97.0 

94.5 

89.0 

94.8 

99.5 

86.0 

89.0 

70.0 

95.7 

82.5 

45.0 

80.4 

70.0 

24.0 

77.4 

70.0 

24.0 

(8) 

95.5 

90.0 

80.0 

89.8 98.9 

99.0 100.0 

74.0 

80.0 

60.0 

92.4 

70.0 

35.0 

77.5 

60.0 

12.0 

67.4 

60.0 

12.0 

(9) 

99.0 

99.0 

98.0 

98.0 

98.0 

80.0 

98.8 

95.0 

55.0 

82.5 

80.0 

36.0 

86.7 

80.0 

36.0


A key term here is "reported" alcohol consumption, since 

unrecorded alcohol consumption is estimated to be "at least 

two-thirds of all alcohol consumption in the Indian 

subcontinent, about half of consumption in Africa, and about 

one-third in East Europe and Latin America" (Rehm, Rehn, 

Room, Monteiro, Gmel, Jeenigan & Frick 2003). It is 

difficult to know how much alcohol is consumed in each 

country, because much alcohol is smuggled or produced as 

traditional beverages in the home. An example from a Muslim 

country is palm wine (Arabic, lagmi) in Tunisia, which is 

made by topping a date palm, hollowing a bowl in the top, 

notching the side, and collecting the liquid in a pot affixed to 

the side of the tree. Even if one knew how much palm wine is 

produced, it would be hard to know how much of it is 

consumed fermented ("sour"), as opposed to unfermented 

("sweet"), and at what average alcohol content it is drunk. 

Also, in countries such as Tunisia and Morocco, where 

tourism is an important source of income, it is difficult to 

know how much of the alcohol is consumed by natives and 

how much by tourists and other expatriates. 

An accurate survey of alcohol consumption in Muslim countries 

presents the added difficulty that drinking and dealing in 

alcohol is usually stigmatized to some degree, often illegal, 

and in some countries severely punished. For example, Saudi 

Arabia is one of the six Muslim countries with zero reported 

alcohol consumption; however, we know that some Saudis 

consume alcohol because there is a literature on approaches to 

alcoholism treatment in Saudi Arabia. WHO gives estimates of 

unrecorded drinking for a number of countries, 15 of which 

are Muslim (see Table 1, column 5). These estimates range 

from 0.3 liters of alcohol per adult in Algeria to 4.0 liters in 

Tajikistan. The estimate of unrecorded drinking in Saudi 

Arabia is 0.6 liters/person. 

Drinking is the norm—that is, more than half the population 

consumes alcohol—in about three-quarters of the non-Muslim 

countries of the world surveyed by WHO (65 out of 88); in

537 

Muslim countries, however, the norm is abstention. In only 

three of 17 Muslim countries surveyed by WHO—Albania, 

Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan—did more than half the population 

drink alcohol. Table 1, column 7 gives figures for last 

year abstainers, although the age cutoffs vary from 12 and 

above to 18 and above. The average rate of abstention for 88 

non-Muslim countries is 35%, while for 17 Muslim countries 

the average rate is 76%. WHO asserts that Egypt, at 99.5%, 

has the highest rate of abstention in the world (WHO 

2004:24). However, this is highly questionable, because about 

11 % of Egyptians are Coptic Christians who do not prohibit 

alcohol; in fact, about half the Christians of the Middle East 

live in Egypt. In Muslim countries, as in all countries, the 

abstention rate is substantially higher among women than 

among men (see Table 1, column 8-9). 

There is evidence of problem drinking in many Muslim countries 

(as well as among Muslims in non-Muslim settings, 

which we will discuss later). Yassine Chaib has suggested that 

"Alcoholism in the countries of the Maghrib [Northwest 

Africa] certainly exists, despite the delicate silence that surrounds 

this problem" (Chaib 2000:98, author's translation), 

and the Director-General for Mental Health in the Ministry of 

Health in Khartoum wrote in 1983 that "alcoholism is now 

common in the Sudan" (Suliman 1983:64). However, alcohol 

abuse is even more difficult than alcohol consumption to estimate 

in Muslim countries, because of stigma. 

WHO surveys of problem drinking include selected Muslim 

countries. For example, a WHO survey of heavy episodic 

drinking included five Muslim countries with rates from 0.2% 

in the Comoros to 12.3% in Chad—meaning that in Chad 

12.3% of the population consumes five or more drinks per sitting 

at least once a week, more than double the rate of the 

U.S. (WHO 2004:28-29). In another WHO survey on alcohol 

dependence, five Muslim countries range from very low in 

Egypt (0.2%), Syria (0.2%), and Indonesia (1.0%); to fairly 

low in Turkey (1.3%); to high in Iran (7.3%) (WHO 2004:30).


In these reports, however, only a few Muslim countries are 

covered and definitions of "heavy episodic drinking" and 

"alcohol dependence" vary. 

WHO also gives rates of alcohol-related health problems in 

selected Muslim countries. For liver cirrhosis, 58 non-Muslim 

countries averaged 12.0 liver cirrhosis cases per 100,000, 

while 7 Muslim countries averaged 2.5 times this rate, at 30.7, 

with Egypt especially high at 35.89 and Turkmenistan third 

highest of 65 countries surveyed at 42.35. However, liver cirrhosis 

can have other causes than alcohol abuse. Also, this 

small sample of Muslim countries is not representative, since 

four of the seven are former Soviet republics in Central Asia 

(WHO 2004:56-58). 

High rates of abstention combined with low rates of alcohol 

abuse sometimes translate to high rates of alcohol abuse 

among those nonnormative Muslims who drink. For example, 

WHO attributes to Egypt a rate of alcohol dependence among 

adults of 0.2% (WHO 2004:30) and a national abstention rate 

of 99.5%. If 0.5% of the population drinks and 0.2% of the 

population is alcohol dependent, this means that 40% of the 

drinkers are alcohol dependent. WHO may have overestimated 

the rate of abstinence in Egypt, and the definition of the 

"adult" population may differ between the two sets of statistics, 

which would lower the 40% figure, but it is instructive to 

calculate rates of problem drinking both in the general population 

and among that segment of the populations that drinks.^ 

Muslim countries differ widely not only in per capita alcohol 

consumption, abstention and problem drinking, but also in 

their patterns of beverage preference. For example, Algerians 

consume 56% of their net alcohol intake as beer, while 

Tunisians prefer wine (52%), and Syrians prefer spirits (67%). 

Rates of alcohol consumption also change over time. For 

example, Algerian alcohol consumption declined from 1.9 

liters/person/year in 1961 to 0.6 liters in 1963, due to Algerian 

independence from France and an exodus of a million French

539 

Algerians who had made up 10% of the population. Algeria's 

alcohol consumption continued to decline to 0.4 liters in 1964 

and 0.1 liters by the late 1990s, affected no doubt by pietistic 

movements and the rise of Islamic political parties. 

The social science literature on alcohol and Islam 

Alcohol When searched by combinations of the keywords "alcohol," 

Studies in "Islam," "Muslim," and "drinking," the Psychological Abstracts 

Muslim Database, which covers major psychological journals since 

settings 1967, gives only 57 articles; eliminating articles that mention 

Islam or Muslims only peripherally or which are mainly about 

tobacco or drugs, and even erring on the side of inclusion, there 

are arguably 38 substantive articles on alcohol and Islam or 

Muslims. The Anthropological Abstracts Database, covering 

major anthropology journals since 1967, lists one article from 

1993, which is about pre-Islamic Arabia. Of the 38 substantive 

articles, only 13 deal with alcohol in predominantly Muslim 

countries. Seven of them are set in Kuwait, three in North 

Africa, two in Central Asia, and one in Turkey. Thirteen more 

discuss Muslims in minority settings—three in the U.S., one in 

Canada, three in Europe, and one each in Russia, Belarus, 

Ethiopia, Mauritius, South Africa, and China. Fourteen of the 

articles deal with alcohol in Israel, an interesting special case 

of Muslim minority that we will discuss separately. The 

remaining three are general articles on Islam and alcohol. 

Using other sources, we have found articles on Egypt, Turkey, 

Malaysia, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Israel, and 

Levant, and a few general articles on alcohol and Islam. With 

the exception of the three articles on Egypt, Turkey, and 

Malaysia, the articles about Islamic settings all dealt with 

countries of the Gulf. In the article about Turkey, alcohol is 

only one aspect of a general analysis of the policies of the 

Refah Party in the context of a discussion on liberal Islam 

(Cinar 1997). Thus we found only two articles about large 

Muslim countries (Egypt and Malaysia).


The study set in Egypt (Soueif, Yousuf, Taha, Moneim, Sree, 

Badr, et al. 1990) deals with drug, alcohol, and tobacco use 

among school-aged youth, and is especially significant 

because Egypt is the largest of 22 Arab countries,* accounting 

for about a quarter of all the Arabs in the world, and because 

it is a large scale study. Based on a 1987 survey of a large 

nationwide representative sample of male secondary school 

pupils (15 to 21 years old), the authors report that 22.49% of 

the students admitted to having used alcohol (which for 72% 

of users was beer). The average age of onset of drinking was 

12. Of the four-fifths of the sample who did not drink again, 

42% abstained because of "the realization that alcohol would 

be harmful," and "a religious reason was mentioned second in 

order, but only by 8.81%." A fifth of the experimenters continued 

alcohol use, but only about 8% did so regularly, usually 

between one and four times a month. Muslims constituted 

92% of the sample, although the researchers surprisingly did 

not disaggregate the Muslims from the non-Muslims (mostly 

Coptic Christians) in reporting results. The sample of 14,656 

students was large and representative. It is interesting that religion 

did not seem to be an important factor in the decision of 

those who experimented with alcohol not to drink again, 

though the article does not indicate whether religion was a 

factor for the great majority of students, 77.51%, who had 

never used alcohol at all. That only male students were surveyed 

suggests the belief on the part of the researchers that 

female students do not have significant alcohol or drug use. 

The article on Malaysia (Kortteinen 2000), reports on the first 

part of a study of the role and functions of alcohol in a small 

town setting (the Selangor area), based on 523 structured 

interviews with household heads. The authors state that this 

was, to their knowledge, the first general population research 

on alcohol consumption or alcohol problems ever to be carried 

out in Malaysia, a country of about 20 million people that is 

about 60% Muslim. The survey sample was 60% Malay, 

reflecting closely the religious make-up of the the country (the 

other 40% are Indians and Chinese, with small numbers of

541 

Malay aborigines). Muslims in Malaysia are almost all Malay, 

the ethnic Malays are all Muslim, and Malays generally 

acknowledge that alcohol is forbidden by Islam. The authors 

add that "it is general knowledge that some Malays drink alcohol," 

particularly since the Selangor religion department 

receives 130-180 complaints per month about Malay drinking. 

However, only one out of the over 300 Malays interviewed 

admitted to drinking alcohol. As a result, the article deals 

almost exclusively with non-Muslim drinking. Thus alcohol 

consumption among Malays appears to be a sensitive topic 

that is difficult to study, although the authors hoped to fmd out 

more about Malay drinking through a second survey using 

"more personal unstructured family interviews." The article 

also points out difficulties with FAO data, which omit Chinese 

distilleries and palm wine production. 

Turning to Kuwait, a 1990 survey of the attitudes of a university 

population of 1001 Arab Muslims in Kuwait toward alcohol and 

drug misuse, 80% condemned substance misuse, 93.6% thought 

it was a contravention of Muslim religious teachings, but only 

26% had a "punishing" attitude, while most (58%) considered 

misusers as sick or deviant and in need of help, subscribing to 

a "disease concept of alcoholism." "No data are available on 

rates of alcohol and substance misuse in the general population" 

in Kuwait. Most of the respondents were non-Kuwaiti, 

which is not unusual since there are more non-Kuwaitis than 

Kuwaitis in Kuwait (Bilal, Makhowi, Al-Fayez & Shaltout 

1990:56, 58, 61). In another study set in Kuwait, Bilal administered 

an Arabic adaptation of a British questionnaire on 

drinking behavior (the Hilton questionnaire) to 96 Arab-Muslim 

alcoholics (83 Kuwaiti Nationals and 13 non-Kuwaiti Arabs) 

who were receiving treatment in a Kuwait Psychiatric hospital. 

Oddly, of these "alcoholics," only 45% self-reported heavy 

drinking, while 15% described themselves as light drinkers 

and 41 % were moderate drinkers; this is probably because, if all 

alcohol is taboo, then even light and moderate drinkers are 

"alcoholics." (Bilal, Kristof & El-Islam 1987:97).


In much the same way that some Christians suggest that the 

cure for alcoholism is Christianity, so also in this limited literature 

there are examples of Muslim scholars who suggest 

that the cure for alcoholism is Islam. An example is M.B. 

Badri's short book, Islam and Alcoholism: Islam, Alcoholism 

and the Treatment of Muslim Alcoholics. The author, from 

Saudi Arabia, describes himself as a "potential alcoholic who 

had not touched alcohol for Islamic reasons," and considers all 

alcohol consumption to be intrinsically pathological. He suggests 

that the Islamic prohibition against alcohol was enacted 

gradually and in an enlightened manner, anticipating the best 

modern psychological principles of behavior change. He criticizes 

Western alcoholism treatments such as chemically induced 

aversion, defends Islamic remedies which he says have been 

mischaracterized, and concludes that Muslim therapists 

should use "the potential power of Islam as a force of persuasion 

and aversion" (Badri 1976:1, 50, 55). Another example of 

an Islam-centered analysis is Suliman, who suggests as a remedy 

for alcoholism is a return to "the therapeutic village and 

the mosque," adding that a major drawback to Christianity as a 

potential curative institution is that "churches do not consider 

alcohol in the same way that Islam does" (1983:65). Badri and 

Suliman may be correct that the deeper integration of Muslims 

into their communities can be both prevention and cure for 

alcoholism; at the same time, there may be non-religious therapies 

for alcoholism which could be combined with Islamic 

therapies. 

The literature on alcohol consumption in Muslim countries 

reflects possible research problems of different kinds: 

• One problem is denial; scholars of alcohol in the Muslim world 

must struggle against "popular convictions that alcohol and 

substance abuse problems do not exist" (Bilal et al. 1990:55). 

• In developing countries "ordinary citizens are not test-minded" 

and so questionnaires about alcohol and other topics usually 

have to be administered personally instead of by mail (Soueif et 

al. 1990:66).


studies in 

Israel 

543 

• When Arab-Muslim respondents participate in surveys, they 

tend to respond in absolute negatives more than Western respondents, 

due to "culturally determined tendencies to respond in the 

negative to guilt-provoking issues" (Bilal et al. 1987:100). 

• Muslim respondents, in both Muslim and non-Muslim settings, 

may be reluctant to admit to a behavior that is religiously taboo; 

they may instead give "culturally desired responses" (Bilal et al. 

1990:56; Neumark, Tahav, Teichman & Hasin 2001:446). 

• Since alcohol and drug use are considered equivalent by many 

Muslims, they are often reported in combined studies without 

disaggregating alcohol from drug use, or burying the disaggregation 

in a table and omitting it from the discussion. 

• Since alcohol is forbidden in Islam, some Muslim scholars tend 

to view any consumption of alcohol as alcoholism and total 

abstinence as the only remedy. 

• Some assume that alcohol consumption by women is nonexistent 

or insignificant, which leads to excluding women from 

studies. For example, in a letter to the editor of Addictions two 

Muslim scholars suggest that in the United Arab Emirates "if 

alcohol and drug use ever occurs among women it is very 

secretive and may not reach the extent of dependence or harmful 

use and hence will not come to medieal attention" (Younis 

&Saad 1995:1683-1684). 

Ten of the 17 articles set in Israel are about mixed populations 

of Muslims and non-Muslims. Israel offers the useful opportunity 

to study different religious groups within one country, since 

most Israelis are Jewish but about 20% of the citizens of Israel 

are Palestinian Arabs, who in turn are about 75% Muslim, 17% 

Christian and 8% Druse (Neumark, Tahav, Teichman & Hasin 

2001:443). 

An example of Israeli scholarship is an analysis by Neumark 

et al. (2001) of a 1995 national household survey of pastmonth 

drinking among Jewish and Arab men and women in 

Israel. The survey finds that Jews drink more often than Arabs, 

that the drinking differences between Jewish and Arab women 

are greater than the differences between Jewish and Arab men, 

and that secular Jews and secular Arabs have similar rates of 

drinking. According to the article, 20% of the Arabs drink and


39% drink heavily, while about 50% of the Jews drink and 

16% of them drank heavily. Thus the overall rate of heavy 

drinking among Jews and Arabs is essentially the same— 

about 8%. Unfortunately, the survey does not appear to have 

distinguished between Muslim and non-Muslim Arabs. Since 

25% of Israeli Arabs are non-Muslim, and since Christian 

Arabs have higher rates of alcohol consumption (more than 

twice as high as Muslim Arabs), the rates of both drinking and 

heavy drinking among Muslim Arabs are probably lower than 

the rates that the article reports for Arabs in general. Neumark 

et al. generalize that "adherence to religious traditions continues 

to serve as a barrier against drinking among both Arabs 

and Jews." They hypothesize that for Arabs "once the constraints 

of tradition and religion are lifted, a pattern of heavier 

drinking [may be] adopted." 

Moore & Weiss (1995) compared reasons for non-drinking 

among 2,366 Israeli Jewish, Muslim, Druse, and Christian 

adolescents in the North of Israel in the winter of 1994. They 

found that the main reasons given for non-drinking by 1,947 

Muslims from grades 9-12 were: Alcohol damages health 

(20.5%), Religion intolerant of alcohol use (18.54%), Do not 

like the taste/smell (12.23%), Do not care for it (11%), and 

Have seen bad examples of what alcohol can do (9.9%). Weiss 

& Moore (1990) also studied perception of magazine alcohol 

advertisements in these four groups, to aid in the design of 

effective messages against alcohol abuse and for alcohol 

advertiser guidelines. 

The Israeli case is potentially instructive for other settings in 

which Muslims are religious minorities within cultures which 

permit alcohol—for example, France. A similarity is that the 

Muslim minorities in both France and Israel are perceived by 

the non-Muslim majority as adversarial to a certain degree. 

However, there are some differences between the situations of 

Muslims in France and in Israel. One is that Muslims are proportionately 

twice as numerous in Israel (750,000 out of 6 million, 

or 15%), as in France (roughly 5 million out of 60 million, or


in Muslim 

countries: 

A case study 

in conference 

presentations 

545 

about 8%). Also, the Muslim minority in France are immigrants 

or the descendants of immigrants from the twentieth 

century, while in Israel most of the Jewish majority is made up 

of relatively recent immigrants. A third difference is that 

France has a strong tradition of alcohol as part of national 

identity. Such differences are often of degree rather than of 

kind, so that comparisons among countries with Muslims in 

multi-confessional settings might offer interesting comparisons. 

Two articles, one of which is a regional literature 

review, extend Israeli research to comparisons with Jordanian 

and Palestinian Authority settings (Weiss, Sawa, Abdeen & 

Yanai 1999, 2002). 

The Kettil Bruun Society (KBS) for Social and Epidemiological 

Research on Alcohol offers an indication of the distribution of 

geographical emphasis in alcohol research in the world. Over 

the course of 30 annual meetings, to 2004, the great majority 

of the research presented in KBS has been both by and about 

Europeans and North Americans. Presentations about the Third 

World have been few, and about Islamic settings very few. In 

the early years of KBS, research about Muslims or Muslim 

countries was scarce or nonexistent, although there have been 

a few such articles recently. At KBS 2002 there was a presentation 

on alcohol advertising in Nigeria, which is 47% Muslim 

(Obot, Kaarick & Ibanga, 2002). At KBS 2003, 2004, and 2005 

there were presentations on alcohol and adolescents in Bosnia 

and Herzegovina, which is 43% Muslim (Licanin, Redzic & 

Kucukalik 2003, 2004; Redzic & Licanin 2005). At KBS 2004 

there were presentations on Muslim minorities in Europe— 

Albanians in Italy (Allamani, Aquilini & Cipriani 2004) and 

Turks and Moroccans in the Netherlands (Dotinga, van de 

Eijnden, Bosveld & Garretsen 2004). An early version of this 

article was presented at KBS 2002 (Michalak & Trocki 2002), 

followed by another paper analyzing advice about alcohol on 

an Islamic website at KBS 2003 (Michalak & Trocki 2003). 

This amounts to eight papers out of over 400 presented at four 

KBS conferences, if we stretch to include the four papers from 

Muslim minority Bosnia and Nigeria. Five of the eight presen-


tations were on European settings, and none focused on a country 

with a majority of Muslims. The relative paucity of research 

on alcohol in Muslim countries, as in Third World countries in 

general, is certainly not due to intentional neglect, and this 

brief analysis is not intended as a criticism of KBS, a worthy 

scholarly organization. A likely explanation is that there are 

simply fewer social scientists and less social policy research 

infrastructure in Third World and Muslim countries; and, 

moreover, scholars naturally tend to focus on the alcohol problems 

of their own societies, and there are certainly enough 

alcohol-related problems in the West to keep them busy. 

We have limited our discussion to only a few articles here, 

since our main point relates to the paucity, the geographical 

and topical distribution, and some general characteristics of 

the social science literature on Islam and alcohol, in keeping 

with our main purpose of providing an overview. 

Alcohol and Islam in the contemporary 

Muslim world 

Alcohol and Religious and civil law do not necessarily coincide, so there 

civil law in the has always been considerable variance with respect to laws 

Muslim world about the production, import, sale, and use of alcohol in the 

many countries in which Islam is the religion of the majority. 

Some have incorporated European-inspired civil codes, separating 

religion and state. They interpret the Quranic dictum 

that there should be no compulsion in matters of religion to 

mean that religion should be a private matter of personal 

observance, and restrict religious law to matters of personal 

status such as marriage, divorce and inheritance. Other countries 

have tried to make Islam the law of their lands, although 

this is difficult because in many areas Islam offers no clear-cut 

answers. Two contemporary extremes with respect to laws on 

alcohol are Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Saudi Arabia: 

A Muslim case 

of extreme 

prohibition 

547 

Saudi Arabia has no national law apart from Islam, following 

a variant of Hanbali jurisprudence. In the Saudi interpretation 

of Islam it is strongly forbidden to consume, produce or sell 

alcoholic beverages. The Saudi authorities allow foreign 

diplomatic missions to import liquor via diplomatic pouch, 

serve it at social functions, and make it available to their personnel—viewing 

foreign missions as extraterritorial. However, 

foreign workers sometimes consume alcohol outside of diplomatic 

missions, or produce their own alcoholic beverages. An 

American contract English teacher in Riyadh, visited by one 

of the co-authors, offered siddiqi (Arabic for "my friend"), a 

locally distilled, colorless, and relatively tasteless neutral spirit 

which is consumed mixed with cola or other flavoring 

agents. Another colleague who worked in Saudi Arabia reports 

that some foreigners bring yeast into the country to ferment 

grape juice into wine. 

Some Saudi Muslims reportedly purchase or make alcohol and 

consume it in their homes, although alcohol is officially strongly 

forbidden and public drunkenness or public consumption of 

alcohol is taboo. Foreigners who have been caught producing 

and selling alcohol have been publicly whipped and deported. 

Saudi Arabia currently performs about 200 public beheadings a 

year, including murderers, adulterers, and drug dealers. Alcohol 

is considered equivalent to drugs, so that dealing in alcohol or 

multiple offenses of alcohol possession and/or consumption 

could theoretically be sanctioned by capital punishment. 

However, it is uncertain whether there have in fact been any 

executions for alcohol-related offenses. Furthermore, the Saudi 

authorities hesitate to violate the privacy of a person's home, 

turning a blind eye to the discreet consumption of alcohol in 

private space. Saudis accept the stringent Hanbali requirements 

for proof, so there must be at least two full witnesses willing to 

testify to having actually observed the consumption of alcohol, 

or the accused must admit to having consumed alcohol. Other 

countries which have attempted to incorporate Islam into their 

legal systems—such as Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, and Afghanistan 

under the Taleban—have arrived at different legal conclusions.


Turkey: A 

Muslim case 

of permissive 

alcohol policy 

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Republic of Turkey. 

Turkey has commercial production and distribution of beer, 

wine, and several different strengths and styles of an anise-flavored 

spirit called raki, as well as local gin, vodka, brandy, 

whisky, and imported alcoholic beverages, some of which 

have been state monopolies at different times. Turkey does not 

appear in the WHO-derived Table 1 but, according to a commercial 

survey, Turks consume about 1.0 liters of alcohol per 

person per year, about half in the form of beer; of the 58 countries 

studied, Turkey has had the highest increase in beer consumption 

(677.8%) between 1970 and 2003 (World Advertising 

Reearch Center (WARC) 2005, 126-127,16). The Capadocia 

area of Central Anatolia has good climate and soil for wine 

grape cultivation and features several wineries. In Turkey, 

alcoholic beverages of all kinds are inexpensive, of good quality, 

and generally available for purchase in mid-sized cities 

and towns and resort areas. Many Turkish Muslims do not 

drink alcohol; some areas, such as Konya, are more religious, 

but abstinence in Turkey is a matter of personal choice, with 

no attempt to translate religious prohibition into civil law. The 

founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was 

a secularist who separated religion and state, brought Islam 

under close control and was himself a heavy drinker, dying in 

1938 in his mid-50s from cirrhosis of the liver. 

Alcohol and Muslim minorities and the case of France 

It has been estimated that there are 1,297,564,000 Muslims in 

the world, of whom 329,348,000 live in non-Muslim countries. 

Thus 25.4%, or slightly more than a quarter of all 

Muslims live as religious minorities in predominantly non- 

Muslim countries (Lapidus 2002:832-834).' The largest 

Muslim minorities are to be found in India (12% Muslim, 122 

million (m) Muslims), Nigeria (47%, 57 m), Ethiopia (41%, 

27 m), China (2%, 25 m), and Russia (10%: 15 m). There has 

been even less research on alcohol among Muslim minorities 

than in Muslim majority countries. A study of religion and

549 

alcohol in the U.S. National Alcohol Survey of 2000 (NASIO) 

found relatively high levels of religiosity (82.5%), proscription 

(75.6%), and abstention (78%) among American Muslims, 

with no self-reported frequent heavy drinkers, but the Muslim 

sample was only 45 people (Michalak, Trocki & Bond 2007). 

The most extensive research and analysis we have encountered 

about alcohol use among Muslims in a minority setting 

is that conducted in the Netherlands among Turks and 

Moroccans. About 4% of the 16 million population of the 

Netherlands is Muslim, including 352,000 Turks and 306,000 

Moroccans as of 2004. In a 2005 thesis, Dotinga reviews 32 

previous studies about Muslims and alcohol in the Netherlands 

(although some were general studies that included data about 

Muslims), and reports on more recent research specific to second-generation 

Turks and Moroccans (Dotinga 2005). The 

main focus is the methodological problems that complicate 

the study of substance use and abuse among migrants, and 

especially Muslims. These problems include nonresponse, 

Muslim cultural taboos that make them reluctant to report 

alcohol use, data collection methods that are culturally inappropriate 

for Muslims, ethnic and generational differences, 

translation problems, memory distortion, ethnicity definitions, 

and bias introduced by characteristics of the interviewer. 

Generally, migrants born in Muslim countries tend to follow 

Islamic rules. It is the second generation Muslims, those born 

in the Netherlands, that tend to adopt Netherlands drinking 

norms which, especially among young adults, can involve 

high rates of problem drinking. Regarding predictors of alcohol 

use among Turks and Moroccans in the Netherlands, 

Dotinga concludes that social cognitive factors, such as perceptions 

of rejection by Dutch society, are stronger predictors 

than religious and cultural factors. The author concludes with 

practical suggestions for collecting more reliable prevalence 

data and directions for future research. 

The situations of Muslims in non-Muslim countries vary 

greatly, as do their attitudes and behaviors with regard to alco-


hol, but it might be instructive to consider at least one brief 

case study—that of France. France has a large Muslim population, 

currently estimated at about 5 million. The majority of 

Muslims in France are North African in origin—Algerians, 

Tunisians, and Moroccans—with smaller numbers of West 

Africans and Turks. Large-scale emigration from North Africa 

to Europe began in the late 1950s and increased in the 1960s 

and early 1970s, declining sharply after European economic 

downturn in the mid-1970s. As a result, there is now a large 

settled population of North African origin in France. Many are 

North Africans who have French citizenship and have brought 

their families to join them or raised families in France; others 

are long-time North African residents without French citizenship 

but with valid work permits; and still others (no one is 

sure how many) are illegal workers or residents, often "false 

tourists" who overstay their visas. 

France is famous for its alcohol products—a broad variety of 

still, sparkling, and fortified wines, beers, cordials, liqueurs, 

ciders, and spirits. France has one of the highest rates of alcohol 

consumption (and liver problems) in the world. Consumption of 

wine, beer, and spirits has declined steadily over the past four 

decades—especially wine, which went from 127.3 liters per 

person per year in 1963 to 48.5 liters in 2003 (WARC 2005:58-9). 

However France is still one of the main alcohol-consuming 

countries. The French generally take pride in their alcohol 

products and consumption of alcoholic beverages can be said 

to be part of the national culture. 

Alcohol is sometimes a problem for North African Muslim 

migrants to France. For example, in a study of 3,500 Tunisians 

who died in France and whose bodies were repatriated 

between 1970 and 1992, Yassine Chaib attributes many of 

these deaths to the relationship between alcoholism and 

migration, which often entails humiliation. He gives examples 

from French police records about alcohol abuse among 

Tunisian migrants. For example, a typical case from a 1986 

case is that of a Tunisian migrant who burned to death in his

551 

cabin along with his dog. According to the police record "the 

occupant was in a state of drunkenness and had been separated 

from his wife for a year; a friend had let him use the cabin; 

he didn't pay rent and worked only occasionally; ...he must 

have asphyxiated before he burned up, the position of the body 

indicating that the victim was lying on his side" (Chaib 2000:98, 

my translation). 

Migrants from North Africa to France go from a culture in 

which alcohol is very negatively valued to a culture in which 

alcohol is very positively valued. When North Africans 

migrate to France, there are four possible behaviors with 

respect to alcohol: (1) Some North Africans drank before and 

continue to drink in France; (2) Some abstained in North 

Africa and continue to abstain in France; (3) Some did not 

drink alcohol before and begin to drink in France; and (4) 

Some drank but give up alcohol in France. These latter two 

groups might be described as "Fallen Muslims" and "Born 

Again Muslims," and these are of particular interest because 

they involve behavioral changes. 

"Fallen" Most North Africans do not drink alcohol, some drink moder- 

Muslims ately, and a few are alcoholics, including a small number of 

public drunkards. The public drunks are a source of embarrassment 

to North Africans in France but other North Africans 

tend not to interfere with them. We encountered one of the 

drunks while doing research in a town near Marseille; his 

practice was to walk vigorously through the main square of 

the town, talking loudly and incoherently to no one in particular. 

Muslim informants told us that drunkenness is the 

response of a few North African workers to the difficult circumstances 

in which they live. Many live in foyer?, (worker 

dormitories), in settings that are exclusively male. Often they 

have wives and children in North Africa, but they only see 

them at long intervals. For migrants with work permits, this 

means that they usually see their wives and children once a 

year when they go home on vacation, but illegal migrants go 

for years without seeing their families because, once out of


France, it is very difficult and expensive for them to get back 

in again. North African Muslim migrants in France live in a 

setting that many of them consider religiously unhealthy, surrounded 

by alcohol, pork, pornographic movies and permissiveness. 

Sometimes they have worked in France for many 

years sending money home, but the jobs at which they work, 

especially in agriculture, provide no social security or retirement. 

As they get older and find it harder to find work, they are 

ashamed to return to North Africa empty-handed, and some 

turn to drunkenness through shame and despair (Michalak & 

Diop 1996). 

"Born Again" Some North African migrants interviewed in France since 

Muslims 1985 exhibited a pattern of early dissolution, spending their 

money on alcohol and prostitutes, followed by a period of crisis, 

rediscovering Islam and, often for the first time in their 

lives, becoming sincerely observant Muslims. We describe an 

example of such a "born again" Muslim in our research in 

Southern France (Michalak and Diop 1996:83, 86). The pattern 

can also be seen in a biography of North African Islamist 

leader Rachid Ghannouchi. After a period as an Arab nationalist, 

Ghannouchi went through a conversion in a single 

night—June 15, 1966—in which he shed secular nationalism 

and "embraced the true Islam." Of this experience Ghannouchi 

said, "I was reborn" (Tamimi 2001:10-11, 22). We have 

argued elsewhere that in settings of Muslim migration there is 

a decoupling of Islam from national identity. In North Africa 

there is also a certain amount of family and social constraint, 

but in France a Muslim is no longer under the same external 

social and moral constraints to observe the rules of Islam. It is 

easier not to fast, not to pray, and not to observe food and 

drink prohibitions unless one chooses to do so. "Thus, 

Muslims who practice Islam in France ... do so more as 

Muslims by choice than as Muslims by birth." (Michalak & 

Saeed 2002:153)

Dissonance 

between 

prescription 

and practice: 

Muslims who 

drink alcohol 

553 

Most Muslims, even in non-Muslim settings, do not drink alcohol. 

However, some do, and yet continue to consider themselves 

Muslim. How do they reconcile their behavior with their religious 

identification? Some of the kinds of responses we have 

received in interviews are: 

• "Drinking alcohol is not really forbidden." "I consider myself a 

Muslim, but I often drink a glass of wine with dinner. That's 

not very important. I think I am a better Muslim than many 

Muslims who don't drink alcohol. Alcohol is not really 'forbidden' 

in Islam. The Quran says alcohol is ijtinab, from the Arabic 

word for the rib, meaning to eschew, or push it away; in this 

sense it is not advised, which is different from forbidden."'" 

• "/ shouldn't drink alcohol but I do." Just as not all Christians 

follow all the ten commandments and not all Jews follow all the 

Jewish commandments at all times, so also not all Muslims are 

completely faithful to all the tenets of their religion at all times. 

One can be imperfect in one's practice of Islam and still be a 

Muslim. 

• "Early Quranic injunctions permit alcohol." Some rules in different 

parts of the Quran are different and seem to contradict 

each other. The standard interpretation is that in these instances 

early rules are superseded by later rules. However, some Muslims 

(for example, the late Sudanese leader Mahmoud 

Mohamed Taha and his followers) justify giving preference to 

the earlier revelations, as purer because they were less affected 

by the constraints of governing a community. Thus one might 

justify drinking on grounds that it was permitted in early Islam. 

• "It is not alcohol but drunkenness that is forbidden." Islam recognizes 

the use of reason (ijtihad) to determine correct behavior. 

Reason suggests that drinking alcohol in moderation is not 

bad but perhaps even good for one's health. It is only drunkenness 

that is bad. Therefore one can drink in moderation so long 

as one does not become drunk. 

• "Times change." The rules that were set down by the Prophet 

Muhammad were devised for a particular time and particular 

circumstances. One can argue that the dangerous times of the 

Prophet required special vigilance, including abstinence from 

alcohol, but that times are different now that the Muslim community 

is no longer in danger. 

Most practicing Muslims would reject all but the second argument, 

pointing out that it is not drinking that makes one no


longer a Muslim, but denying that drinking is forbidden; similarly 

one can neglect prayer through weakness and still be a 

Muslim, but one cannot deny that prayer is an obligation. It 

may be that a new form of Islam is evolving in Europe, accommodating 

to secularism, individualism, democracy, pluralism, 

political participation, monogamy, gender equality, and perhaps 

changes in food and drink prohibitions—including alcohol. 

Some have gone so far as to suggest that there is an 

emerging "Euro-Islam" (Tibi 2002). However, most Muslims 

resist the idea of multiple forms of Islam, insisting on the unity 

of the umma, or Islamic community. Most would argue that a 

Muslim who habitually consumes alcohol simply ceases to be 

a Muslim. 

Conclusions and a research agenda 

Explaining Earlier in this article we have given a historical account of 

alcohol how the Islamic prohibition on alcohol came is thought to 

prohibitions have come about in stages during the lifetime of the Prophet 

Muhammad. The account is plausible and is broadly accepted 

by knowledgeable Muslims. However, by itself it is insufficient 

to explain the prohibition and its maintenance. Why was 

there complete prohibition of any use of alcohol, rather than a 

more limited condemnation of the abuse of alcohol? Why did 

Islam not follow the path of Judaism and Christianity, attempting 

to tame and religiously incorporate rather than forbid alcohol? 

Some Muslims would reject such inquiry on grounds that 

divine commandments are not subject to human questioning 

but must be obeyed simply because they come from God. 

Other Muslims might argue that the abuse of alcohol by some 

justifies a prohibition against alcohol for all; indeed, the experience 

of Prohibition in the United States from 1919 to 1933 

reminds us that one does not have to be a Muslim to support 

such a social argument. 

The Islamic alcohol prohibition has parallels with dietary prohibitions—such 

as the prohibition against pork in both

555 

Judaism and Islam. There is an extensive literature on food 

prohibitions in which the pork prohibition has been explained 

in many ways (e.g., Douglas 1966; Erich 1970; Harris 1974; 

Sopher 1970). Lobban offers a good review of the various theories 

concerning pigs and their prohibition, arguing that "any 

strictly monocausal explanation of the rise and evolution of 

the pig taboo based solely in either religion, ecology, ancient 

history, disease theory, or mythology will not be sufficient to 

understand this practice;" he goes on to offer a hypothesis that 

combines both materialist and idealist explanations (Lobban 

1994:69). Indeed, the alcohol taboo and its maintenance in 

Islam may arise from multiple causes. However, all food and 

drink taboo explanations appeal to functionalism in one way 

or another; like all functionalist arguments, although some 

may seem more plausible or more elegant than others, none 

can be definitively proven or disproven. 

Although the hypothesis is untestable, we would argue that the 

relationship between food and drink on the one hand and 

group identity on the other is an important element in the 

Islamic alcohol prohibition. The idea that shared food and 

drink taboos are important in reinforcing group solidarity is 

not incompatible with the existence of other factors in 

explaining the origin and maintenance of the alcohol prohibition. 

Tapper & Zubaida (1994) have pointed out that food is 

part of identity, in the Middle East and the Islamic world as 

elsewhere. Food prohibitions are an obvious corollary to food 

prescriptions, as are drink prescriptions and prohibitions. 

Such shared rules help to define social groups. For example, 

wine and pork have four possible permutations: (1) wine 

yes/pork no (Jews); (2) wine yes/pork yes (most Christians), 

(3) wine no/pork no (Muslims), and (4) wine no/pork yes 

(some Methodists and Baptists). Religio-national identity is 

even related to the things that one drinks but shouldn't. For 

example, Syrian Muslims are people who don't drink arrak or 

who do drink arrak but may believe that they shouldn't. 

Christians are people who are generally permitted to drink 

alcohol but don't necessarily do so. In summary, you are what


you eat, you are not what you don't eat, you are what you 

drink, and you are not what you don't drink. Or, you are what 

you should eat, you aren't what you shouldn't eat, you are 

what you should drink, and you aren't what you shouldn't 

drink—whether you drink it or not. 

Avoiding In studying alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors, it is importheologocen- 

tant not to focus too narrowly on religion. As'ad Abukhalil 

trism (2002) has correctly deplored a tendency among some scholars, 

when analyzing social and political phenomena in parts of 

the world with Muslim majorities, to attribute everything to 

Islam. The French scholar Maxime Rodinson (1989) called 

this tendency "theologocentrism." Bernard Lewis (1993) 

exemplifies this fallacy, for example, when he suggests that 

Islam is a total phenomenon which determines every aspect of 

the lives of Muslims, from details of the conduct of daily life 

to macropolitical phenomena. A better approach would be that 

"religion"—be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or 

whatever—can be an important but never an exclusive factor. 

As we have argued elsewhere, "Religious—in this case, 

Muslim—identity is one of multiple competing identities, and 

it is important to look at how religion interacts with other 

aspects of identity—such as national origin, race, and class" 

(Michalak & Saeed 2002:148). Nor is Islam monolithic and 

uniform. As has been noted above, there is wide variation in 

the Islamic world with regard to both religious and civil laws 

about alcohol. Ultimately, "religion" is a socio-culturally constructed 

category of behaviors that does not "cause" anything; 

indeed, religion can with equal or greater validity be considered 

an outcome. 

A research We have offered here an introduction to the relatively little 

agenda explored field of alcohol and Islam. There is a need for 

research in Muslim countries about civil laws with respect to 

alcohol, descriptions of drinking settings, and quantitative and 

qualitative surveys of attitudes and behaviors of drinking and 

abstinent Muslims. Since a quarter of all Muslims live in non- 

Muslim countries, there is also a need for similar studies

557 

among Muslim minorities, including in the United States. In 

such investigations there is great potential for collaboration 

between Muslim and non-Muslim social scientists. The topic 

of alcohol and Islam is of interest both for practical applications 

in the prevention and treatment of alcohol problems of 

Muslims and for theoretical contributions to a broader understanding 

of the relationship between religious norms and practices 

of abstention and drinking. 

Notes 1. We adopt "Quran" to transliterate the name of the Muslim holy book; 

in Arabic it means "recitation" and has been transliterated in various 

ways—Koran, Qur'an, Alkoran, etc. 

2. Allah is the Arabic word for Cod. In writing about Islam in English and 

in interpreting the Quran some prefer to use Cod, arguing that Jews. 

Christians, and Muslims are all monotheists who worship the same 

supreme being. Others prefer to use Allah, arguing that there are 

important differences among the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim 

concepts of God. Because Muslims recognize the legitimacy of Jewish 

and Christian revelation and because Arabic-speaking Jews, Christians, 

and Muslims all use the word Allah, we have here preferred to use Cod 

rather than Allah. 

3. The Quran is divided into 30 juz, or chapters; these in turn are divided 

into suras, or articles; and these in turn are divided into aya-s, which 

are verses. 

4. There are many English translations of the Quran; the work used 

here is by A. Yusuf Ali, 1983 edition, recommended to us by Muslim 

colleagues. The Quran is a complex work: We recommend that reading 

of the Quran be supplemented by explanatory books such as 

Gatje (1996) and Sells (2001). 

5. Source of Muslim population statistics: Lapidus 2002. 

6. Alcohol consumption per capita (APC) is recorded annual alcohol 

consumption by adults (15 years old or older) in liters; rank is among 

185 countries studied, in order of lowest alcohol consumption. 

Source: WHO 2004, pp. 11-12. 

7. Source: WHO 2004, pp. 24-26. 

8. There are 22 member countries in the Arab League including Palestine. 

9. Where Lapidus offers a range, we average his higher and lower estimates. 

For example, Lapidus estimates a total of between 1,270,735 

and 1,324,393 Muslims in the world, so we use 1,297,564.


10. Similarly, Rachid Boudjedra writes of Algeria in the late 1960s and 

early 1970s that. "Those who drink say that the Quran never formally 

forbade wine, but rather the abuse of wine. For this reason, the 

situation fluctuates. From time to time, a law forbids consumption of 

wine and of alcohol to Algerians, then it falls into disuse under pressure 

from the consumers." (Boudjedra 1971:82. cited in Chaib 

2000:98, my transl.) 

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