George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)
Persians have a proverb, that coffee without tobacco, is meat without salt 1.
Opium and beng, (which latter is the leaves of hemp in pills or conserve) are also by the rigid Mohammedans esteemed unlawful, though not mentioned in the Korân, because they intoxicate and disturb the understanding as wine does, and in a more extraordinary manner: yet these drugs are now commonly taken in the east; but they who are addicted to them are generally looked upon as debauchees 2.
Why wine was forbidden.
Several stories have been told as the occasion of Mohammed’s prohibiting the drinking of wine 3: but the true reasons are given in the Korân, viz. because the ill qualities of that liquor surpass its good ones, the common effects thereof being quarrels and disturbances in company, and neglect, or at least indecencies, in the performance of religious duties 4. For these reasons it was, that the priests were, by the Levitical law, forbidden to drink wine or strong drink when they entred the tabernacle 5, and that the Nazarites 6 and Rechabites 7, and many pious persons among the Jews and primitive Christians, wholly abstained therefrom; nay, some of the latter went so far, as to condemn the use of wine as sinful 8. But Mohammed is said to have had a nearer example than any of these, in the more devout persons of his own tribe 9.
Of the prohibition of gaming.
Gaming is prohibited by the Korân 10 in the same passages, and for the same reasons, as wine. The word al Meisar, which is there used, signifies a particular manner of casting lots by arrows, much practised by the pagan Arabs, and performed in the following manner. A young camel being bought and killed, and divided into ten, or twenty eight parts, the persons who cast lots for them, to the number of seven, met for that purpose; and eleven arrows were provided, without heads or feathers, seven of which were marked, the first with one notch, the second with two, and so on, and the other four had no mark at all 11: these arrows were put promiscuously into a bag, and then drawn by an indifferent person, who had another near him to receive them, and to see he acted fairly; those to whom the marked arrows fell, won shares in proportion to their
1 Reland. Dissert. Miscell. T. 2. p. 280. V. Chardin, Voy. de Perse, T. 2. p. 14, & 66.
2 V. Chardin, ibid. p. 68, &c. & D’Herbel. p. 200.
3. V. Prid. Life of Mah. p. 82, &c. Busbeq. Epist. 3. p. 255, and Maundeville’s Travels, p. 170.
4 Kor. chap. 2. p. 25, chap. 5. p. 94, & chap. 4. p. 66. See Prov. xxiii. 29, &c.
5 Levit. x. 9.
6 Numb. vi. 2.
7 Jerem. xxxv. 5, &c.
8 This was the heresy of those called Encratitæ, and Aquarij. Khwâf, a Magian heretic, also declared wine unlawful; but this was after Mohammed’s time. Hyde, de rel. vet. Pers. p. 300.
9 V. Reland. de rel. Moh. p. 271.
10 Chap. 2. p. 25. chap. 5. p. 94.
11 Some writers, as al Zamakh. and al Shirâzi, mention but three blank arrows.
