Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Sixth Fascicle

his dislikes and labels them ‘harâm’ and ‘makrûh’, the Islamic
religion will degenerate into Christianity. Like Christianity, it will
turn into a jumble that can never be rearranged.
Isrâf (wastefulness) is an act of harâm, and quite a vicious one.
How daring it is to say off-hand that tobacco is definitely an isrâf.
An even worse expression of inanity and ignorance is to utter
words such as ‘out of place’ and ‘valueless’ about the statements of
Islamic scholars. The first requirement is to understand these
things; next, negations must be made one by one and by providing
documentation. Yes. A person who conjectures parochially on the
lexical meaning of ‘isrâf’ without bothering to look up the
explanation and the classification provided by Islam, will dismiss
the matter by simply saying that smoking tobacco is the worst isrâf.
It is an offence to dock the money necessary for the subsistence of
one’s family. Why is the blame incurred by the offender being put
only on tobacco and no quota from the criticism is being assigned
to the major culprit, i.e. laziness and expenditure on harâms and
needless ventures? Why is a poor person’s docking the money he
is to spend daily for the needs of his family and buying tobacco
being milked for the purpose of calling one or two cigarettes
smoked by a rich person or a poor person’s smoking the cigarette
offered to him ‘harâm’? Their argument has a ring of ingrained
bigotry, which in turn betrays their biased hostility against tobacco.
Ceasing from tobacco will not cause one to earn thawâb for
resisting against (the wishes of) one’s nafs [1] . It is cruelty to deprive
one’s body of its needs. It is a sinful act. The nafs will not be
satiated when it attains its needs. What it wishes is always beyond
its needs, i.e. the harâms. Then, resisting against one’s nafs
involves abstaining from the harâms and from excess in enjoying
the mubâhs. Not to smoke tobacco once a day is not resistance
against one’s nafs. Resistance to it is abstinence from smoking
tobacco too much, which means not to smoke so much as to abuse
one’s health and wallet. This resistance against one’s nafs should
be caried on not only with tobacco, but also with all the other
(permitted acts termed) mubâhs.
Nor will likening tobacco to opium indicate that it is harâm for
everyone. On the contrary, it will indicate that it is not even
makrûh for people who smoke it below the limit of harm. For,
[1] Nafs is a malignant creature inherent in the human nature. It is
inimical to Allâhu ta’âlâ and to His commandments. All its wishes are
harmful to it and to the person carrying it.
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