still, by which time jurists had established the extent of the harmfulness and the nature of the evidence for that judgement in the sources, opinions settled on the middle position, namely that smoking is makrūh (disliked, reprehensible).1 In fact the argument of this group is similar to the first group. The rather different judgement is perhaps owed to pragmatism. The earlier scholars, in their time, had issued the stronger verdict in hope of stopping smoking before it became a settled habit in the society and spread among the people. By the time of the later scholars too many people were already addicted, so they lightened the wording and called it “disliked, reprehensible” in the hope that those more wary of risking offending God would keep or be drawn away from it. It is worth noting that among this group, the majority, especially in the Indian subcontinent and some parts of the Middle East, categorized tobacco smoking as makrūh taḥrīmī (disliked–forbidden). This is in fact a term from much earlier, traceable to Abū Ḥanīfa’s student al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805?) who differentiated between two types of forbidden things: those which are expressly mentioned in the Qur’ān and Sunna and those which are made forbidden by analogical reasoning. For the former al-Shaybānī uses the term ḥarām, and for the latter he uses makrūh, making it clear that, for all practical purposes, the two are the same. The later jurists coined the expression makrūh taḥrīmī for those forbidden things which are not expressly mentioned in the Qur’ān and Sunna.
Al-Aqḥiṣārī’s presentation of the argument in his epistle in the 11th/17th century remains as fresh and relevant today as it was then. The reasoning of the majority of today’s jurists does not depart from his in any significant way. He pronounced smoking ḥarām; the jurists of today pronounce it as either ḥarām or makrūh taḥrīmī or makrūh but their supporting arguments remain much the same. Thus, Michot has discovered in al-Aqḥiṣārī’s epistle a very valuable document of Ottoman times which demonstrates how Sunnī jurists dealt with this new problem. They clearly understood that this new habit was not just a personal choice issue; rather, it had serious implications for the ethos of the Islamic society of their time. They saw how the example of those afflicted by this addiction was sanctioning a new sort of behaviour in the society, where people were not literally drunk but resembled drunk people in their indolence about or negligence of religious and family responsibilities. In this respect, the document illustrates a central and distinguishing characteristic of Islamic ethics, namely that an individual’s conduct sometimes needs to be weighed not only in the narrow, private circle of a single life but in the larger, public circle of what that individual’s conduct enables or sanctions in the conduct of others in the same community.
The epistle is remarkable also for the way al-Aqḥiṣārī discusses the issue. His manner is orderly, methodical, coherent and balanced. He combines understanding of the theme and command of the Islamic sources he will use to derive a ruling, with an even, fair, objective temperament: thus, when presenting opinions contrary to his own, there is no display of anger or any use of wording that might hint at superiority or self-righteousness. Clearly, for him, the issue is not one of belonging to this or that faction or group; it is not about identity, but about honest, serious practice of the religion. Al-Aqḥiṣārī starts his discourse in scholarly style by distinguishing between futility (‘abath), amusement (la‘ib) and caprice (lahw). Then, besides religious arguments, he also advances some medical arguments, again sensibly and capably, which illustrates how, for jurists, Islamic rulings must take account of different aspects of the issue at hand and deal with them accordingly, from different angles and approaches. Michot comments: “Health considerations play a remarkable part in al-Aqḥiṣārī’s argumentation. He uses medicine as a servant of jurisprudence, in order to demonstrate tobacco’s harmfulness” (p. 26). Overall, the method of al-Aqḥiṣārī illustrates how jurists must make Islam responsive and relevant to the events of their time, consider their wider impact, and be sure of their own religious seriousness in offering a judgement, before they venture to consider that they have right to pass such a judgement.
Michot brings out in his Introduction some specific issues related to smoking, highly relevant to the daily life of a believer, and about which there is little disagreement among jurists. For example, all jurists agree that smoking is not allowed inside the mosque. Even those who hold the opinion of its permissibility forbid it inside mosques. They compare smoking tobacco with eating onions or garlic, the consumption of which, though permissible generally, is forbidden in the mosque on account of their odour which offends the angels and people attending the prayer. Similarly, a smoker whose mouth and breath retain the smell of smoking can be refused entry to a mosque. Indeed, many jurists consider other religious gatherings like the circles for teaching of the Qur’ān and ḥadīth in the same category as mosques. Ḥanafī and Mālikī jurists do not permit a smoker, who smells of his habit, to attend any such gathering; while Shāfi‘ī jurists disapprove it. The jurists also disapprove a smoker leading the prayer; and they are unanimous that if someone smokes during the day while fasting, it breaks his fast. As for buying and selling tobacco, those jurists who forbid its consumption also forbid its production and trade in it.
We are indebted to Y. Michot for discovering and presenting this precious text, for editing it so thoroughly and for a conscientious English translation that will make it accessible to the widest possible readership. In his learned Introduction, Michot clears up the misunderstanding of some people who identified the author of this epistle with another Aqḥiṣārī, the famous Bosnian scholar Ḥasan Kāfī (d. 1024/1615). He also provides, for the first time in any European language, a useful biography of the author, and a good bibliography of his works, which, as Michot himself acknowledges, cannot be considered complete but suffices to indicate the range of al-Aqḥiṣārī’s interests.
The book will appeal to teachers and students of Islam as a living tradition with strong continuities from its past. The topic of how smoking was viewed from an Islamic perspective in the 11th/17th century can serve as a point of entry for classroom discussions about similar issues today, which require a comparable balancing between reasonable private amusement or distraction and ingrained social habits that consistently entail wastage of time and neglect of committed attention to prayer and other religious duties – the examples that come to mind are television, mobile phones, and some forms of internet usage: these have the look of addictions in that there are tangible withdrawal symptoms. It does not follow that in these cases (unlike smoking) the harm outweighs the possible good, or that the difficulty of trying to forbid altogether is less than that of just trying to limit misuse informally. Those with more specialized interest in Islamic Legal issues in the Ottoman domains of the period, or in socio-economic history of commercial practices and their linkage with cultural attitudes, or in the migration of ideas and attitudes across the Islamic world – Michot hints at a fascinating “passage to India” of this text of al-Aqḥiṣārī – as well as those who are intrigued by manuscripts and the craft of establishing a good edition will find much in this book to instruct and delight them.
Mohammad Akram Nadwi
Oxford, 27 June 2009
1 Among the Ḥanafī jurists who subscribed to this view were al-Shurunbulālī, al-Musayyarī, al-Ḥaṣkafī, the author of al-Durr al-Mukhtār; among the Mālikīs, S. al-Sanhūrī, I. al-Laqānī, M. al-Fakkūn, Kh. b. A. al-Maghribī, A. b. Y. Ibn Ḥamdūn; among the Shāfi‘īs, N. D. al-Ghazzī, al-Qalyūbī, M. ‘A. Ibn ‘Allān; among the Ḥanbalīs, A. al-Bahūtī and others. (See al-Durr al-mukhtār with Ḥāshiyat Ibn ‘Ābidīn, vol. v, pp. 295–296; Tahdhīb al-furūq at the margin of al-Furūq, vol. i, pp. 216–217; Fatḥ al-‘Ālī al-Malik, vol. i, pp. 118, 189–190; Bughyat al-mustarshidīn, p. 260; Ḥāshiyat al-Qalyūbī, vol. i, p. 69; Ḥāshiyat al-jumal, vol. i, p. 170; Ḥāshiyat al-Shirwānī on Tuḥfat al-minhāj, vol. iv, p. 237; Maṭālib ūlī l-nuhā, vol. vi, pp. 217–219; al-Fawākih al-‘adīda fī l-masā’il al-mufīda, vol. ii, p. 78; al-Shawkānī,
