Question:
as-salam alaykum,
I was surprised reading a news paper today that there is a pesantren lead by a shaykh (and also Kyai) in Indonesia who teach their mureeds to make a healthy cigarette, they said they are using many herbs that is useful for people. Now their business is good and their omzet [annual revenue] reach 2.5 billions rupiah. They named their cigarette, rokok sin, according to them, its meaning is healthy cigarette. So what is this? To my opinion all cigarettes are harmful and not good for our health and Mawlana never like people who is smoking. Pls advise,
jazzakAllah khayr
Answer:
`Alaykum as-Salam:
Everyone now knows that cigarettes are poison and the unanimous ruling across the schools of fiqh is that it is haram (categorically forbidden) to smoke. However, in certain Muslim countries they consider the tobacco such a profitable industry that they hesitate to fight it. They do not, unlike neighboring Muslim governments, put frightening pictures on cigarette packets or raise taxes on tobacco. Shaytan dangles the fear of poverty in front of people’s eyes to blind them to Allah’s generosity and to deafen their ears against His commands:
الشَّيْطَانُ يَعِدُكُمُ الْفَقْرَ وَيَأْمُرُكُم بِالْفَحْشَاء وَاللّهُ يَعِدُكُم مَّغْفِرَةً مِّنْهُ وَفَضْلاً وَاللّهُ وَاسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ
“The devil promises you destitution and enjoins on you lewdness. But Allah promises you forgiveness from Himself with bounty. Allah is All Embracing, All Knowing” (2: 268).
Hence the culture of tobacco is promoted in certain Muslim lands as a false “economic incentive.” In Brunei Darussalam the ‘Royal Command’ issued at the launching ceremony of the ‘International Seminar on Tobacco OR Health’ on 11 July 2002 summed up this dilemma very well: “Do we want to survive economically with smoking, which has many alternatives, or do we choose one that has no alternative, that is to safeguard health and save lives?” Meaning: life and health are non-negotiable and everyone agrees that smoking is harmful; so first eliminate tobacco and smoking; then we can discuss economic alternatives.
It is very, very unfortunate that shaytan enrolls even certain `ulama in some parts of the world in defense of smoking. If they themselves have economic interests in the tobacco industry, or they are simply addicted and try to justify themselves, then their opinion on this issue is without weight and we ask Allah to forgive them and guide them. Otherwise, their only excuse is that they are stuck in the past. In the past, meaning 30-40 years years ago and up to 400 years ago, people were excused if they considered smoking mubah or at worst makruh. Such lenient rulings are indeed related from some of the greatest Jurists (Fuqaha’) in all four schools. Sad to say, Dr. Ali Gomaa relates that Shaykh Ya Sin al-Fadani (1907-1991) one of the most important Indonesian scholars of Mecca, used to take puffs in the middle of reading hadiths! And the late Murshid of the Jerrahi-Khalwatis in Istanbul, Shaykh Muzaffar Effendi (d. 1985), was also a chain smoker; as were (and are) many others.
However, now conditions have changed radically because we all know beyond doubt, even non-specialists, of the immense harms entailed by smoking both to smokers and to non-smokers due to secondary inhalation. We know that even one cigarette a day results in a risk of heart disease that is halfway between that of a smoker and a non-smoker. Furthermore, not one medical opinion states that smoking strengthens the organism but all agree that it weakens it. So the ruling is haram in the light of the prohibition of harming oneself and others (la darar wa-la dirar) and the prohibition of “any substance that either intoxicates or weakens” (naha Rasulullah salla Allah `alayh wa-sallam `an kulli muskirin wa-mufattir). And there is no excuse whatsoever in saying that even Awliya defended it such as Shaykh Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi or Shaykh Ahmad Harun and others, because as we said they lived in a different world and if they faced what we now know they would be the first to say that the ruling on tobacco now – smoking it, selling it, producing it or planting it – is a complete and unalloyed prohibition.
As for the satanic claim that a certain cigarette is healthy and contains good herbs, this is exactly what Haji Jamahri, the inventor of the kretek or clove cigarette, claimed a hundred years ago. It was supposed to help cure respiratory diseases such as asthma! The rest is history: now kretek cigarettes are mass-produced and smoked by Indonesia smokers, i.e. 63 of Indonesian men; there is no positive effect on asthma at all, rather, as Indonesian scientists have pointed out, kretek cigarettes are much higher in tar and nicotine than Western cigarettes, and the eugenol contained in the clove has an anesthetizing effect which allows a deeper smoke inhalation, which redoubles the harm! Truly we belong to Allah and to him is our return. Maybe the slogan of rokok cengkeh (clove cigarettes) was outdated so they came up with a new slogan of “using many herbs” and it is all a recycled lie as old as time, which you can verify by a look at the “List of plants used for smoking” on Wikipedia. Ironically Indonesia is lobbying hard for kreteks to be mass distributed in the USA so there are big economic stakes at hand, which means that more and more people will be caught up in this poisonous lie.
In our time, just as the physicians concur that the medical consequences are real and horrible, similarly the Awliya warn that the spiritual consequences of smoking are real – as it instills in the smoker satanic arrogance, impatience, anger – and we heard from our teachers that on one’s deathbed the smoker’s tongue may be prevented from saying LA ILAHA ILLALLAH. Your Prophet, O Believer, did not want you to get “smoker’s face” and a dark heart but rather light inwardly and outwardly! The spiritual harms of smoking in our time cannot be glossed over with the innocence of our forefathers in a previous age. Mawlana Shaykh Nazim has been adamant since the first time we ever heard him speak on this issue: Smoking is from shaytan. One time the great Yemeni Wali of Mombasa, Kenya, Habib Ahmad Mashhur bin Taha al-Haddad (1907-1995) was asked: “Do the Habaib agree with the Wahhabis on any issue among the controversial issues?” He said “Yes! Smoking is HARAAAAAM!” Among descendants of the Prophet (upon him and his Family blessings and peace) these are our qudwah and the leadership we follow on this particular issue as on others; not people given to addictions and uncontrolled habits. So we say to our brethren check who is your murshid and who you follow and obey!
May Allah Most High keep you and us on the Fitra of His Holy Prophets and the people of purity and goodness here and hereafter, and may He make our last words in this dunya LA ILAHA ILLALLAH MUHAMMADUN RASULULLAH.
Was-Salam,
Hajj Gibril F Haddad
Medical Disclaimer:
Information on this site is NOT intended or implied to be medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Those should only be sought from your physician or appropriate health care provider. This information is only provided as an information resource and is NOT to be relied on for diagnostic and treatment purposes. It is NOT intended as patient education, and NOT a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment and does NOT establish a patient physician relationship.
