Ethics - Use of Alcohol

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Dear Jayne

The use of things that bring about intoxication are forbidden in Islam.

However, you will find reasonably high levels of ethanol (common alcohol) in many fruit occurring naturally.

If you consider how many bottle of LM a patient needs to drink before they become intoxicated from alcohol, you would realise that they would have died much earlier from having drank too much water.

[As far as the dried pills are concerned, the alcohol has evaporated and is no longer present!]

So my view as a practising Muslim homoeopath is that the amount of alcohol in LMs or in medicating potency in no way causes intoxication. Therefore its use in this way (as a carrier or preservative) is permitted.

However, I must advise that there are certain scholars would say that anything touched by alcohol becomes unclean and therefore its use in however small quantities is not acceptable.

BUT alcohol is used in MANY allopathic preparations and these same scholars if told to take this medicine, would take it with out bothering to investigate the detailed composition. In fact if you were to take out alcohol out of allopathic use all together, one would find a major problem in the preparation of medicines.

There is an over-riding rule in Islam that if your life (or health) is in danger, then you may break some of the rules provided that you do not transgress. For example, the flesh of a pig is one of the most dirtiest things to eat and it is forbidden (The ban in first mentioned in the old testament Leviticus Ch 8 V11 (or Ch 11, V8). However, if one finds one's self in a situation of starving to death and the only food available is pig's meat, then one may eat of pig's meat to the level of passing the danger of death and no more.
If you have a patient that needs help on this issue, you may refer them to me if you wish.

Rgds
Soroush
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Message: 7
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 12:17:00 +0400
From: Jayne Evans
Subject: an ethical issue

To Muslim Homeopathes,
Does using alcohol to preserve remedies violate Sharia Law? Are Muslim
clients concerned that there is alcohol in the remedy?
It seems to me the amount taken in each dose is miniscul and certainly won't
lead to any states of intoxication.
Thanks Jayne
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