Calls of Faith: 'Do Not Approach Prayer While Intoxicated' and the Principle of Gradual Legislation

Occasion: Transcription of an ʿIshāʾ khatira delivered on July 26, 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Dr. Ahmed began his khatira by praising Allah and sending blessings and peace upon His Prophet ﷺ, then with a supplication in which he asked Allah for the good of this night, the good of what is in it and what comes after it, and that He protect us from its evil and the evil of what is in it and what comes after it, and that He set right for us our religion, our worldly life, and our Hereafter, and turn away from us the causes of punishment in this world and the Hereafter by His mercy, gentleness, and generosity.

The Third Call in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ

He said: Our talk tonight is about the third call in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, in which the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, addresses His servants and says: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَقْرَبُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَأَنتُمْ سُكَارَىٰ حَتَّىٰ تَعْلَمُوا مَا تَقُولُونَ﴾ ("O you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying") then He continues in the verse: ﴿وَلَا جُنُبًا إِلَّا عَابِرِي سَبِيلٍ حَتَّىٰ تَغْتَسِلُوا﴾ ("nor while you are in a state of janābah, except those passing through, until you have washed").^[1] The verse has more than one part, but we pause initially at the first part.

The simple understanding of this call is that Allah, blessed and exalted, alerts the members of the Muslim community not to approach prayer while in a state of intoxication. And the scholars say: this is one link in the links of gradualism in the prohibition of wine.

And here are two questions: Why gradualism? And how does Allah, Mighty and Majestic, call these people with faith while they are still engaged in wine? For when the verse was revealed it was not the final stage, but a stage among the stages; and the second verse, which says: ﴿إِنَّمَا الْخَمْرُ وَالْمَيْسِرُ وَالْأَنصَابُ وَالْأَزْلَامُ رِجْسٌ مِّنْ عَمَلِ الشَّيْطَانِ فَاجْتَنِبُوهُ﴾ ("Wine, gambling, stone altars, and divining arrows are but defilement from the work of Satan, so avoid it") is the one that ended the matter. But here we are still at a stage of it, and yet our Lord, glory be to Him, still calls them: "O you who believe." So how is that? The answer is that they had not yet been forbidden, and therefore their faith itself is graduated along with the texts that come down to them.

The Right of the Road and the Moves of Faith

And he reminded that in the morning they had been speaking about a serious matter, the penalty for the married adulterer, the penalty of stoning, and that they wanted to compare a group of established matters in the religion, and to affirm that there are rights particular to people and general rights of society, and what is called "the right of the road."

And he related in this connection that in 2019 he was with a group in a car, and they skidded and collided with a tree, and we ask Allah for well-being for everyone, and the car, praise be to Allah, was in a state of severe damage, and some of those with them were taken to the hospital, and the matter was grave. Then they asked about the tree they had collided with, and were told: this is the right of the road, the right of the place you are in; your skidding is your own concern, but the tree is ours. So the right of the road obliged him to pay a fine for something he did not intend, nor did he intend to bring about its cause. And this is in human law, so what of it if the one who prohibits is Allah, and the legislator is the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, majestic in His height?

And the point is that our Lord moves people through specific moves until He brings them to the degree of perfection of faith. And we have "mutlaq al-īmān" and "al-īmān al-mutlaq," and they are not identical: "mutlaq al-īmān" is any degree of the degrees of faith, whereas "al-īmān al-mutlaq" is complete, perfect faith. So here the Lord of the worlds gave them the name of faith in the sense of mutlaq al-īmān, that is, whatever level of its levels you are at when it was said to you: Do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated; or that they are at absolute faith because they held to prayer itself and had not yet been forbidden what is below it of drinking wine. And on either possibility we are speaking of the people of faith.

A Practical Application for Calling to Islam: One in Whom Faith and Other Things Are Combined

And from this branches an application in the area of daʿwah: if there is a person in whom is one of the attributes of faith, and also an attribute that is not of its attributes, how do we judge him? We have, for example, what is related from the Prophet ﷺ: «إذا رأيتم الرجل يعتاد المسجد فاشهدوا له بالإيمان» ("If you see a man who habitually frequents the mosque, bear witness for him of faith").^[2] So it is said: and he may, on the other side, be doing something wrong, so do we bear witness for him of faith? And the logic is that we bear witness for him of the faith that has appeared to us, and what we do not know or are not certain of is not our concern, along with the possibility of finding excuses for people.

And the summary of the statement is that our Lord, glory be to Him, applies the term faith even to those who commit major errors. And he said: imagine, ﴿وَإِن طَائِفَتَانِ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ اقْتَتَلُوا فَأَصْلِحُوا بَيْنَهُمَا فَإِن بَغَتْ إِحْدَاهُمَا عَلَى الْأُخْرَىٰ فَقَاتِلُوا الَّتِي تَبْغِي حَتَّىٰ تَفِيءَ إِلَىٰ أَمْرِ اللَّهِ﴾ ("And if two groups of the believers fight each other, then make settlement between them; but if one of them oppresses the other, then fight the one that oppresses until it returns to the command of Allah"). We have reached fighting here, so it is not a passing problem, and yet the name from the Lord of the worlds for these people remains that they are people of faith. So faith remains even if many of its features have gone from within the soul, until it returns again. And this is a very important snapshot that the Lord of the worlds records in His saying: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَقْرَبُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَأَنتُمْ سُكَارَىٰ حَتَّىٰ تَعْلَمُوا مَا تَقُولُونَ﴾ ("O you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying").

A Problem: The One with the Strong Head

Then he presented a problem: if one of them is not dominated by wine to the degree that makes him heedless of what he says, a man of strong concentration and clear mind, who is accustomed to drinking two cups without being affected, then he enters to pray and recites the verses correctly, does he escape the liability of the prohibition? And the answer: no, because the statement of the reason does not lift the basis of the ruling. So His saying: "Do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated" is a standing ruling, and His saying: "until you know what you are saying" is an added explanation of the reason attached to the ruling that came from the Lord of Might, glory be to Him.

The Stages of Gradualism in the Prohibition of Wine

And he enumerated the stages of gradualism: the first stage is His saying, the Exalted: ﴿وَمِن ثَمَرَاتِ النَّخِيلِ وَالْأَعْنَابِ تَتَّخِذُونَ مِنْهُ سَكَرًا وَرِزْقًا حَسَنًا﴾ ("And from the fruits of the palm trees and grapevines you take intoxicant and good provision"). The second stage: ﴿يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الْخَمْرِ وَالْمَيْسِرِ قُلْ فِيهِمَا إِثْمٌ كَبِيرٌ وَمَنَافِعُ لِلنَّاسِ وَإِثْمُهُمَا أَكْبَرُ مِن نَفْعِهِمَا﴾ ("They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, 'In them is great sin and [some] benefit for people, but their sin is greater than their benefit.'"). The third stage here: "Do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying." And the fourth stage: ﴿إِنَّمَا الْخَمْرُ وَالْمَيْسِرُ وَالْأَنصَابُ وَالْأَزْلَامُ رِجْسٌ مِّنْ عَمَلِ الشَّيْطَانِ فَاجْتَنِبُوهُ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ﴾ ("Wine, gambling, stone altars, and divining arrows are but defilement from the work of Satan, so avoid it that you may be successful").^[3]

Does Gradualism Still Apply to People Today?

And the important question: do these stages of gradualism still apply to the conditions of people up to now? He has two opinions on the matter. The first opinion says: there is no gradualism after the rulings have been made clear and completed, after His saying, the Exalted: ﴿الْيَوْمَ أَكْمَلْتُ لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ وَأَتْمَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَتِي وَرَضِيتُ لَكُمُ الْإِسْلَامَ دِينًا﴾ ("Today I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion"); the matter has ended and there is no further comment, and whoever is ignorant of a matter is held to account for it, and whoever is heedless of a matter is referred back to it. And some of them said: gradualism was, at the beginning, a dealing with the souls that the Lawgiver wanted to uproot from the roots of the clutches of polytheism and sins that were in them, so the legislation came to deal with these souls and extract these sins from the depths of the hearts and their roots.

And consider the matter of attachment to wine; it is not a trivial one, and we ask Allah for well-being, and praise be to Allah who has blessed us by our not coming near this, but those who are afflicted with it tell you about the effect of this thing and its domination in the blood, inside the blood. So uprooting a person himself from this matter requires gradualism. So if we find a new Muslim, or even a man afflicted with wine, how is he to be judged?

He said: based on his condition of course; and I am among the people who say that rulings apply to persons according to their conditions, and this is an accepted matter in which I do not think there is any disagreement. For our Lord, glory be to Him, commanded people to pray, so whoever is asleep, the ruling is lifted from him until he wakes, and whoever is forgetful, the ruling is lifted from him until he recovers or remembers. And there may be much talk on this matter, but our Lord, majestic in His height, wanted the community to learn what is called "the method of gradualism," especially in what is connected with legislation.

The Story of the Sister from Ohio

And on the occasion of what they had been discussing in the morning, he mentioned that a sister came to them at the mosque in Ohio wanting to become Muslim, and she said that her husband was not Muslim and that she wanted to stay with him. So she asked: What should I do? He said to her: Marital relations are forbidden to you. She said: How is that? — and in one version: You are crazy! — that she cannot do without him in any circumstance. He said to her: You have two months; either you bring him and he becomes Muslim, or there is no contact for two months, or we look for another solution for you. And after three weeks the shahādah came, praise be to Allah.^[4]

And he explained the secret of that: because you proceeded with the matter by a method, step after step, and did not jump upward a jump that would disturb people about the legislation itself.

Linking the Three Calls in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ

Then he said: and in order to be brief, as the time is late, we ask Allah for blessing and safety for us and for you; in every sūrah of the Qur'an that we are in, we wanted to link the pivotal joints in it, as we did in al-Baqarah and Āl ʿImrān. So the first call in this noble sūrah: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا يَحِلُّ لَكُمْ أَن تَرِثُوا النِّسَاءَ كَرْهًا﴾ ("O you who have believed, it is not lawful for you to inherit women by compulsion"). And the second call: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَأْكُلُوا أَمْوَالَكُم بَيْنَكُم بِالْبَاطِلِ إِلَّا أَن تَكُونَ تِجَارَةً عَن تَرَاضٍ مِّنكُمْ وَلَا تَقْتُلُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ بِكُمْ رَحِيمًا﴾ ("O you who have believed, do not consume one another's wealth unjustly, but only [in lawful] business by mutual consent. And do not kill yourselves. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful"). And the third: "Do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated." And he asked those present to help him link these three divine commands to the people of faith in the sūrah.

So at the beginning they used to inherit women by compulsion, seeking more wealth, domination, and control; he wants money by any means, so the Lord of the worlds forbids him from exploiting the weak, from exploiting the woman who has no power or strength, to gain more wealth: this does not avail, fear Allah regarding the trust in your hands. So we moved to another kind of trusts: ﴿لَا تَأْكُلُوا أَمْوَالَكُم بَيْنَكُم بِالْبَاطِلِ﴾ ("do not consume one another's wealth unjustly"). And when we speak of our wealth, He says "your wealth." So one says: How do I consume my own wealth? It is said: unjustly. How, when there is trade between us, a joint work between us? Then you take from what you do not know about. He says: But Allah is the one who permitted: ﴿إِلَّا أَن تَكُونَ تِجَارَةً﴾ ("but only [in lawful] business"). He said: the dividing line in the matter is "by mutual consent among you." And what does "by mutual consent among us" mean?

And he gave an example of that: One day I worked with the simple workers who move about in the street. They say: Today we have to buy food, so for how much? And the employer knows that these men will take from the drawer, from the cash box, he knows that today there may be very large profits, so he says to them: Today you are permitted so much. So if they take, by what amount? By the amount they were permitted. If they go to the market and find the prices have risen a little, do they raise the ceiling, so they call and ask permission and go and come in three hours? No, this is excused, for it is "by mutual consent among you."

And another example: two partners, and it is known that each of them spends on his household from this company, there is joint work between us, and at the end of the day each one takes his expenses. So your expenses when we agreed, I know that you have two sons at university, and your wife has such-and-such, and you have your circumstances, and you pay rent or an installment or the like, and I do not have many of these responsibilities. So we entered the partnership and said: each one takes from this box the expenses of his household. So our friend came to take three, and you take the same three: is this just or not? So he distinguishes between two terms: "equality of amounts" (tasāwī) and "fairness" (musāwāt). Tasāwī is parallel numbers: one and one, two and two. As for musāwāt, it is that each one takes according to what suffices him. So if one takes three and it suffices him, and the other takes fifteen and it barely suffices him, this is musāwāt. Where is the wrong? There is no wrong. Where is the injustice? There is no injustice.

So our Lord says in the first: do not dominate the wealth of the weak among women, as an example, and by this kind, measure all the kinds that parallel this woman in her weakness. Then we move to the other stage, which is the interlinked partnerships, so that there is no loss on the Day of Mutual Loss; so He forbade consuming people's wealth unjustly, as a branching out from women and those like them among the weak, because at the beginning of the sūrah there is severe and stern talk about consuming the wealth of orphans. Then came the command in the matter of women, then came the prohibition of consuming people's wealth unjustly, then we ascended to the causes that drive people to consume people's wealth unjustly. So what is the cause present here? Wine: "Do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying." It is as though the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, does not legislate only for the matter of prayer and its rulings and regulations, but legislates for what lies behind that, which is safeguarding this society through this etiquette and this conduct.

Whoever Is Self-Sufficient Abstains

And he apologized for the length, then said that the decisive sentence in the matter is: "Whoever is self-sufficient abstains." It is short so we will explain it a little: I used to say, whenever I had a friend or colleague at work who smoked, that my salary is higher than yours by a known amount. He says: How? We are at the same grade and entered on the same day. So I say to him: I do not smoke cigarettes, and you smoke them, and it costs you this amount, and I, praise be to Allah, have this amount, so we buy some fruit with it and add to the household. So if I can carve out this amount from my money for the sake of my head and my mood, then someone who has no such mood can refrain from carving it out, and I imagine that I smoke and set aside this amount, for example.

So the point in the saying: whoever is self-sufficient abstains, and so does not stretch out his hand either to forbidden wealth or to forbidden women. And that is why the penalty is made severe for the muḥṣan; why? Because the basic assumption is that he is chaste and has what suffices him, and he has no reason to look beyond in the first place.

And he concluded by asking Allah, glory be to Him, to preserve our religion for us, and to protect us and you from evil and its causes.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The verse is in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ [43]. The speaker recited the verse up to His saying "until you have washed" then moved on, and what he recited is recorded to its extent. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The speaker cited the hadith in this wording without attribution; its chain of transmission is subject to discussion among the scholars of ḥadīth, so it should be checked before publication. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The places in order: al-Naḥl [67], al-Baqara [219], al-Nisāʾ [43], al-Māʾida [90]. And the verse of fighting is in al-Ḥujurāt [9], and the verse of perfection in al-Māʾida [3], and the first and second calls in al-Nisāʾ [19] and [29]. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The transcript's wording here is garbled ("بيوع الشهادة هم ثلاث أسابيع"); it was understood from it that the shahādah came after three weeks, and it is not clear to whom the statement refers.