‘Abdallah b. ‘Umar reported God’s Messenger as saying, “If anyone drinks wine God will not accept prayer from him for forty days,* but if he repents God will forgive him. If he repeats the offence God will not accept prayer from him for forty days, but if he repents God will forgive him. If he again repeats the offence God will not accept prayer from him for forty days, but if he repents God will forgive him. If he repeats it a fourth time God will not accept prayer from him for forty days, and if he repents God will not forgive him,, but will give him to drink of the river of the fluid flowing from the inhabitants of hell.”
Tirmidhi transmitted it, and Nasa’i, Ibn Majah and Darimi transmitted it on the authority of ‘Abdallah b. ‘Amr.
‘A’isha reported God’s Messenger as saying, “If a faraq of anything causes intoxication, a handful of it is forbidden.”*
Ahmad, Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud transmitted it.
* To drink as much as a faraq (see p. 577) would be almost impossible, so the point of the tradition is to forbid anything which might in any conceivable circumstances cause intoxication.
Wa’il al-Hadrami said that Tariq b. Suwaid asked the Prophet about wine and he forbade him. When he told him that he made it only as a medicine he replied, “It is not a medicine, but is a disease.”
