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Nucleus wrote: And it doesn't use the word alcohol, it specifically says intoxicatants

What's the Arabic word used in the Quran?

evitav wrote:What's the Arabic word used in the Quran?

Khumur = intoxicants.

--- Fri Jul 20, 2012 9:36 pm ---

rayznack wrote:Smoking is no doubt the biggest killer; far worse than alcohol.

Not according to UN report.

When considering the world's worst killers, alcohol likely doesn't come to mind. Yet alcohol kills more than 2.5 million people annually, more than AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis.

For middle-income people, who constitute half the world's population, alcohol is the top health risk factor, greater than obesity, inactivity and even tobacco.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... needs-glob

^Actually nucleus, my understanding is that eh is correct - world wide smoking related diseases are estimated to kill over 6 million people each year. With smoking on the increase in some Asian countries it is expected to increase.

Alcohol related deaths are lower, but as the article states it is a big killer overall. The problems in the article (and many others based on the report findings) are all very concerning and do show the very serious issues with alcohol related problems around the world. Overall, I think the case for Alcohol being a greater risk is easy to see - it is not just about those dying directly from alcohol.

What the WHO report does bring out, and what the article you linked to says, is that for MIDDLE INCOME groups - alcohol is the main killer. (The poor tend to smoke more, as a general rule).

The good thing is that smoking is known to be bad and the more health conscious countries get, the smoking rates decline.

If a divine knowledge of science and mechanisms of disease was known when the Quran was written, then anything containing nicotine and caffeine should have also been banned in the Quran.

Cancers as a killer disease is only a recent phenomenon in human history - until anti-biotics were discovered and used, the main killers were infections. People didn't live long enough for cancers to be the major killers.

Cancers also vary between sexes and over ages (I have studied and modelled cancers as part of my job) and vary from country to country. They vary between smokers and non-Smokers.

So, yes smoking related cancers are high and reducing smoking has brought down cancer rates - it also brings down heart attacks/cardiovascular disease.

The biggest killer in most countries is not cancer though - it is mostly heart conditions for most older ages. At the younger ages, it tends to be accidents or other diseases. The biggest factors for heart conditions are exercise, diet and genetic disposition.

But looking at alcohol specifically - when you factor in the alcohol related effects on society - on families and especially the victims of violence at where alcohol has been involved, there are far more victims world wide than there are deaths from smoking. So I'm in agreement with kanelli - the reason God singled out alcohol for a clear ban and not the as-yet-unknown outside America tobacco, was for the reasons God gives in the Quran - 'the bad outweighs the good, and it is best for you to abstain'.

I don't think that Caffeine as a stimulant needs to be banned - though I understand some Muslims in the past have tried to ban it.

From a historical perspective, previous scriptures did not ban alcohol - and like the Quran didn't mention the yet to be discovered social evils of the tobacco plant.

Cheers,
Shafique

shafique wrote:Actually nucleus, my understanding is that eh is correct - world wide smoking related diseases are estimated to kill over 6 million people each year.

I stand corrected, when they mentioned tobacco, I thought they were talking about death rate.