Alcohol and Islam: An Overview

Abstract

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 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.