Silsilah Sahihah

Benefits and Issues
This is the evil effect of alcohol that, despite performing a great obligation like prayer, it does not attain the honor of acceptance. There are two meanings of acceptance:
➊ Sufficiency, ➋ Receiving the reward of obedience to Allah, the Exalted.
In this hadith, the second meaning is intended, which is the real meaning of acceptance, i.e., the one who drinks alcohol is deprived of the reward of prayer. However, his prayer is still performed; for example, by performing the Zuhr prayer, he will be absolved of the obligation and will not incur the sin of abandoning prayer, but due to his crime, he will be deprived of its reward and merit.

Benefits and Issues:

➊
The punishment for sin can also be that acts of worship are not accepted, but this does not mean that the one who drinks alcohol should abandon prayer, because abandoning prayer is another sin, which is even worse than drinking alcohol.

➋
Major sins (kabirah) are also forgiven through repentance (tawbah).

➌
By repeatedly breaking repentance, the importance of repentance diminishes in the heart of the sinner, due to which such a state arises that at the time of repentance, remorse does not arise from the heart; thus, such repentance is not accepted.

➍
Those who commit major sins (kabirah) will enter Hell and will be deserving of severe punishment.

The acceptance of prayer here refers to receiving the reward for the prayer. In other words, a person who drinks alcohol will not receive the reward for his prayer for forty days, even though the obligation will be lifted from him and making up (qada) will not be required of him. Imam Ibn Qayyim rahimahullah has explained the wisdom behind the period of forty days by stating that the effect of alcohol remains in the body for forty days. And Allah knows best.

(1) Imam al-Nasa’i rahimahullah has narrated this report from two teachers: Qasim ibn Zakariya ibn Dinar and Amr ibn Uthman. The wording of the hadith as mentioned is from the teacher Amr ibn Uthman, whereas the teacher Qasim ibn Zakariya ibn Dinar narrated it by meaning (not verbatim).

(2) From this hadith, it is understood that through repentance (tawbah), all types of minor and major sins are forgiven. What sin can be greater than disbelief (kufr), polytheism (shirk), and hypocrisy (nifaq)? Yet all of these sins are also forgiven through sincere, genuine, and pure repentance. Furthermore, it is not a condition for the acceptance of repentance that it be done immediately after the sin is committed, although it is certainly preferable.

(3) The punishment mentioned in the hadith is solely for drinking wine (khamr), whether intoxication occurs or not, and whether a little or a lot is consumed.

(4) “Wahat” was their vast and expansive garden, which they inherited from their honorable father. Its distance is described as being very great. Most of it consisted of grapevines.

(5) What is meant by the acceptance of repentance is that he will not be punished in the Hereafter for drinking wine. It is possible that if he repents within forty days, his prayers (salat) will also begin to be accepted, because repentance erases the sin and its effects.

(6) “He has sworn an oath”—that is, the third time repentance will not be accepted; rather, he will be punished in the Hereafter for drinking wine. However, this is only if Allah Ta’ala does not forgive him.

(7) The meaning of repentance not being accepted the third time is not that he will be permanently deprived of Paradise, for this is specific only to the disbeliever. At most, it means that he will certainly be punished for drinking wine. After that, either Paradise or Hell may be his abode.

(8) “The pus of the inhabitants of Hell”—in Arabic, the term “ṭīnat al-khabāl” is used. In another narration, its explanation is given as the pus and blood from the wounds of the inhabitants of Hell, which is why it has been translated thus; otherwise, this is not a literal translation.