Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Sixth Fascicle

are not clear and are open to ta’wîl, or from hadîth-i-sherîfs that
have been narrated by only one person, muhkam as they are. And
by ‘dangerous’, ‘something prohibited by Islam’ is meant.” Hence,
smoking tobacco cannot be said to be ‘dangerous’, either.
‘Bad habit’ means ‘habit of committing a harâm’. It is not
worthy of a man of religion to call using something that is not
harâm a ‘bad habit’. An ignorant person will be bold. He will not
be ashamed to make statements that Islam does not approve of. We
trust ourselves to Allâhu ta’âlâ against being like those people who
call the statements of superior Islamic scholars ‘nonsensical’ only
because they are counter to their nature and personal opinions.
Another denunciation of tobacco comes from gourmands, who
say that it cannot be likened to food. “It is not a kind of need to
burn the plant called tobacco and to inhale its smoke; so it is not
something permissible,” they say. I wonder what they will say about
burning frankincence or aloe wood or incense and smelling its
smoke? Will they say that such things are not permissible since they
are not edible or drinkable? Will they likewise denounce
something being practised as an act of sunnat with the dead as well
as with the living, saying that it consists in burning something up
into smokes that disappear into air? The fact, however, is that these
herbs, as well as many another bad smelling species, have been
included in the word, “The jewels that He produces from earth... .”
The Fuqahâ-i-kirâm (great scholars of Fiqh) ‘alaihi-r-rahma’ have
said that the âyat-i-kerîma that purports, “Who is to prohibit the
jewels that Allâhu ta’âlâ produces from earth?” subsumes within it
concept even satisfactions such as enjoying beautiful sights or
lovely jâriyas. They have stated that those enjoyments, therefore,
are permissible. [Multeqâ, (by Halabî Ibrâhîm, 866. Aleppo – 956
[1549 A.D.],) and Mejma’ul-enhur, (a commentary to the former
rendered by Shaikhîzâda ’Abd-ur-Rahmân bin Muhammad
‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaih’, d. 1078 [1668 A.D.].)] It is commanded
in the book entitled Shir’at-ul-islâm that the strong-scented herb
called ‘rue’ (rute graveolens) should be eaten to suppress the smell
of onions. What could differentiating tobacco smoking from
burning frankincense or chewing rue construed to be as, if not as
sheer bigotry? That Lawh-i-mahfûdh or ’Ilm-i-ilâhî is meant by the
word Kitâb in the fifty-ninth sûra of An’âm Sûra is written in all the
books of Tafsîr. And all the harâms in that Kitâb (Book) have been
declared in the Qur’ân al-kerîm. People’s understanding will vary
directly as their knowledge and ikhlâs. (Sources of Islamic
knowledge called) Sunnat; Ijmâ’ (unanimity, consensus of the early
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