Mohammed Prohibits Wine and Gambling

This prohibition of wine hindered many of the prophet’s contemporaries from embracing his religion.

Continuing Mohammed,
our selection from The History of the Saracens by Simon Ockley published in1718. The selection is presented in 10.5 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Mohammed.

Time: January, 625
Place: Medina

When the enemy were retreated toward Mecca, Mohammed went to the field of battle to look for the body of Hamza. Finding it shamefully mangled, in the manner already related, he ordered it to be wrapped in a black cloak and then prayed over it, repeating seven times, “Allah acbar,” etc. (“God is great,” etc.). In the same manner he prayed over every one of the martyrs, naming Hamza again with every one of them; so that Hamza had the prayers said over him seventy-two times. But, as if this were not enough, he declared that Gabriel had told him he had been received into the seventh heaven and welcomed with this eulogium, “Hamza, the lion of God and the lion of his prophet.”

The Muslims were much chagrined at this defeat. Some expressed a doubt of the prophet being as high in the divine favor as he pretended, since he had suffered such an overthrow by infidels. Others murmured at the loss of their friends and relations. To pacify them he used various arguments, telling them the sins of some had been the cause of disgrace to all; that they had been disobedient to orders, in quitting their post for the sake of plunder; that the devil put it into the minds of those who turned back; their flight, however, was forgiven, because God is merciful; that their defeat was intended to try them and to show them who were believers and who not; that the event of war is uncertain; that the enemy had suffered as well as they; that other prophets before him had been defeated in battle; that death is unavoidable. And here Mohammed’s doctrine of fate was of as great service to him as it was afterward to his successors, tending as it did to make his people fearless and desperate in fight. For he taught them that the time of every man’s death is so unalterably fixed that he cannot die before the appointed hour; and, when that is come, no caution whatever can prolong his life one moment; * so that they who were slain in battle would certainly have died at the same time, if they had been at home in their houses; but, as they now died fighting for the faith, they had thereby gained a crown of martyrdom and entered immediately into paradise, where they were in perfect bliss with their Lord.

[* An opinion as ancient as Homer. — Iliad, vi. 487.]

In the beginning of the next year the prophet had a revelation, commanding him to prohibit wine and games of chance. Some say the prohibition was owing to a quarrel occasioned by these things among his followers.

[Several stories have been told as the occasion of Mohammed’s prohibiting the drinking of wine. Busbequius says: “Mohammed, making a journey to a friend at noon, entered into his house, where there was a marriage feast; and sitting down with the guests, he observed them to be very merry and jovial, kissing and embracing one another, which was attributed to the cheerfulness of their spirits raised by the wine; so that he blessed it as a sacred thing in being thus an instrument of much love among men. But returning to the same house the next day, he beheld another face of things, as gore-blood on the ground, a hand cut off, an arm, foot and other limbs dismembered, which he was told was the effect of the brawls and fightings occasioned by the wine, which made them mad and inflamed them into a fury, thus to destroy one another. Whereon he changed his mind and turned his former blessing into a curse and forbade wine ever after to all his disciples.” (Epist. 3.) “This prohibition of wine hindered many of the prophet’s contemporaries from embracing his religion. Yet several of the most respectable of the pagan Arabs, like certain of the Jews and early Christians, abstained totally from wine, from a feeling of its injurious effects upon morals and, in their climate, upon health; or, more especially, from the fear of being led by it into the commission of foolish and degrading actions. Thus Keys, the son of Asim, being one night overcome with wine, attempted to grasp the moon and swore that he would not quit the spot where he stood until he had laid hold of it. After leaping several times with the view of doing so, he fell flat upon his face; and when he recovered his senses and was acquainted with the cause of his face being bruised, he made a solemn vow to abstain from wine ever after.” — Lane’s Arab. Nights, vol. i. pp. 217, 218.]

In the fifth year of the Hegira, Mohammed, informed by his spies of a design against Medina, surrounded it with a ditch, which was no sooner finished than the Meccans, with several tribes of Arabs, sat down before it, to the number of ten thousand men. The appearance of so great a force threw the Muslims into a consternation. Some were ready to revolt; and one of them exclaimed aloud, “Yesterday the prophet promised us the wealth of Khusrau (Cosroes) and Caesar and now he is forced to hide himself behind a nasty ditch.” In the meantime Mohammed, skillfully concealing his real concern and setting as good a face upon the matter as he could, marched out with three thousand Muslims and formed his army at a little distance behind the intrenchment. The two armies continued facing each other for twenty days, without any action, except a discharge of arrows on both sides. At length some champions of the Koreishites, Amru son of Abdud, Acrema son of Abu Jehel and Nawfal son of Abdallah, coming to the ditch leaped over it; and, wheeling about between the ditch and the Moslem army, challenged them to fight. Ali readily accepted the challenge and came forward against his uncle Amru, who said to him, “Nephew, what a pleasure am I now going to have in killing you.” Ali replied, “No; it is I that am to have a much greater pleasure in killing you.” Amru immediately alighted and, having hamstrung his horse, advanced toward Ali, who had also dismounted and was ready to receive him. They immediately engaged and, in turning about to flank each other, raised such a dust that they could not be distinguished, only the strokes of their swords might be heard. At last, the dust being laid, Ali was seen with his knee upon the breast of his adversary, cutting his throat. Upon this, the other two champions went back as fast as they came.

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