The Prohibition of Alcohol in Islam: Religious Imperatives and Practices in the 17th - 19th Century Dagestan

Abstract

Despite the well-known imperative alcohol prohibition in Islam, in their everyday lives, throughout many places and times, Muslims have been drinking alcohols. In this research, the religious prohibition and its practices are discussed in the context of the bicentennial history of Dagestan (until the final annexation by the Russian Empire). The article draws upon religious prescriptions in the works of the Shafi'i (al-Nawawi and others) and Hanafi (al-Samarqandi and others) jurists, comparing them with evidences described and analyzed by scholars, foreign travelers (Adam Olearius, Evliya Çelebi, JA. Güldenstädt etc.), as well as local theological, legal and history works in Arabic language.