tag name Alcohol type: Miscellaneous web link bahai-library.com/tags/Alcohol related tags Addiction; Domestic violence; Wine (metaphor) Inventory subject Alcohol and drugs; tobacco; opium selected quotations
(authoritative sources)These quotations reflect common presentations of Bahá’í views; the materials below may show a wider range of interpretations and contexts:
"... It is inadmissible that man, who hath been endowed with reason, should consume that which stealeth it away. Nay, rather it behooveth him to comport himself in a manner worthy of the human station, and not in accordance with the misdeeds of every heedless and wavering soul..."
– Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, ¶119"144. It is inadmissible that man, who hath been endowed with reason, should consume that which stealeth it away. ¶119
There are many references in the Bahá’í Writings which prohibit the use of wine and other intoxicating drinks and which describe the deleterious effect of such intoxicants on the individual. In one of His Tablets, Bahá’u’lláh states:
Beware lest ye exchange the Wine of God for your own wine, for it will stupefy your minds, and turn your faces away from the Countenance of God, the All-Glorious, the Peerless, the Inaccessible. Approach it not, for it hath been forbidden unto you by the behest of God, the Exalted, the Almighty.‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains that the Aqdas prohibits “both light and strong drinks,” and He states that the reason for prohibiting the use of alcoholic drinks is because “alcohol leadeth the mind astray and causeth the weakening of the body.”
Shoghi Effendi, in letters written on his behalf, states that this prohibition includes not only the consumption of wine but of “everything that deranges the mind,” and he clarifies that the use of alcohol is permitted only when it constitutes part of a medical treatment which is implemented “under the advice of a competent and conscientious physician, who may have to prescribe it for the cure of some special ailment.”
– Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Note 144
"Regarding the use of liquor: According to the text of the Book of Aqdas, both light and strong drinks are prohibited. The reason for this prohibition is that alcohol leadeth the mind astray and causeth the weakening of the body. If alcohol were beneficial, it would have been brought into the world by the divine creation and not by the effort of man. Whatever is beneficial for man existeth in creation. Now it hath been proved and is established medically and scientifically that liquor is harmful.
As to the meaning of that which is written in the Tablets: “I have chosen for thee whatsoever is in the heaven and the earth”—this signifieth those things which are in accordance with the divine purpose and not the things which are harmful. For instance, one of the existing things is poison. Can we say that poison must be used as it hath been created by God? Nevertheless, intoxicating liquor, if prescribed by a physician for the patient and if its use is absolutely necessary, then it is permissible.
In brief, I hope that thou mayest become inebriated with the wine of the love of God, find eternal bliss and receive inexhaustible joy and happiness. All wine hath depression as an after-effect, except the wine of the Love of God."
– 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Additional Tablets, Extracts and Talks (AB02266)
"The wine mentioned in the Tablets has undoubtedly a spiritual meaning for in the "Book of Aqdas" we are definitely forbidden to take not only wine, but everything that deranges the mind. In poetry as a whole wine is taken to have a different connotation than the ordinary intoxicating liquid. We see it thus used by the Persian poets such as Saadi and Umar Khayyam and Hafiz to mean that element which nears man to his divine beloved, which makes him forget his material self so as better to seek his spiritual desires. It is very necessary to tell the children what this wine means so that they may not confuse it with the ordinary wine."
– from a letter dated 4 November 1926, written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer
bahaidata.org Q1626 · Links to Bahá'í wikis (bahai9, bahaipedia, etc.) references en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_alcohol; bahaiquotes.com/subject/alcohol; www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/search#q=Alcohol
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