Alcholism

The Prohibition era did have a certain sense of lawlessness; the very fact that consumption was not eliminated is testimony to that; and the fact that organized crime manufactured and distributed the bulk of the illicit alcohol of the 1920's and early 1930's is evidence that gangsters were aided by Prohibition. Enforcement was spotty, with stills (distilleries) and speakeasies(illicit drinking places) popping up in every population center.

Islam banned alcohol 14 centuries ago among people whose love for alcohol was second to none. In three simple steps, spanning only a few years, alcohol was banished from the Muslim world. Today, despite small areas of infraction, a map of the dry world coincides with the map of the Muslim world. Islam has declared alcohol to be Ummul-Khabaith (the root of all evil) and no power on earth can change that designation.

We recently saw a small example of the same miracle with respect to drugs. One command by the Taliban Ameer achieved what hundreds of experts and millions of dollars could not. In the areas under Taliban rule the cultivation of opium has stopped.

ISLAMIC APPROACH:

Prophet adopted this evolutionary or gradual method. According to al-Bukhвri, Ð'isha (RA), the wife of the Prophet says that in the early days of Islam only such verses were revealed that sought to change a person's heart and mind, not verses that laid down divine law. Only when the Qur'an had successfully inculcated in the believers an innate acceptance of the evil nature of alcohol and adultery were the two explicitly prohibited.

Describing this Qur'anic prohibition, Ð'isha (RA) says, " had such a ban been revealed right in the very beginning, the people would have immediately cried out, "Never shall we leave alcohol nor shall we ever leave adultery."

Gradual change is but the Natural way of change. Islam was able to establish an evil-free society for the first time in history only because it employed this natural method of gradual change. We cannot find an example of such comprehensive success in transforming society on the part of any reform movement in the history of social reform.

In other words, the Islamic scheme for social reform can be called a results-oriented method as opposed to a dogmatic method. Islam seeks to bring about change in a manner