Cigarette smoking is damaging not only to your health and your pocket, but it is damaging to how well you adhere to your deen, your religion, your Islam. The overwhelming majority of Islamic scholars have concluded that cigarette smoking is haram (forbidden), and for a number of solid reasons. Shaikh Muhammad Hassan said, “In light of the evidence that medical research has found which clearly proves that cigarette smoking causes disease, and fatal diseases as well, cigarette smoking is no doubt forbidden in Islam.” To name a few, cigarette smoking is directly linked to the development of heart disease and cancers of the mouth, esophagus, throat, lung, stomach, and intestines. Those who are still skeptical and claim that Islam does not prohibit cigarette smoking, should be reminded of the following verse in the Holy Qur'an which commands Muslims to stay away from taking part in anything that incurs great harm upon themselves. {And spend in the way of Allah and do not throw [yourselves] with your [own] hands into destruction. And do good; indeed, Allah loves the doers of good.} “By smoking, the smoker is actually committing two sins at once. The first sin is harming one's own body and health. The second sin is harming those around him/her, due to the deleterious effects of inhaled cigarette smoke,” said Shaikh Hassan. Passive smokers are those who do not smoke but they are exposed to secondhand smoke. They are inhaling many of the same cancer-causing substances and poisons as the smoker. According to a report by the US Center for Disease Control, secondhand smoke causes numerous health problems in infants and children, including more frequent asthma attacks, respiratory infections, ear infections, and sudden infant death syndrome. Smoking during pregnancy results in more than 1,000 infant deaths annually. The report further stated that non-smokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30%. “If the millions of dollars spent on buying cigarettes in Egypt alone were instead spent on feeding the poor or caring for orphans, we could have eradicated poverty in this country,” said Shaikh Hassan. “To me, I picture smoking as literally burning money. It is like rolling up wads of money, lighting it up, and burning it. Which logical person would do this?” said another Muslim scholar, Shaikh Wajdi Ghonaim. In the British Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, the supervisor of the anti-smoking program at the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia, Dr. Muhammad Al-Baddah, said that smokers in Saudi Arabia spend over SR 5 billion to buy some 40,000 tons of tobacco yearly. Not only is it an utter waste of money to buy cigarettes, but cigarette smoking is burdening the budgets of governments worldwide in health expenditures for the treatment of illnesses caused by cigarette smoking.
There are many reasons to quit smoking: for health concerns, for the health of your children, for prettier teeth and younger-looking skin, to save money, or to avoid the repulsive mouth odor that smoking causes. Maybe you know all of this information and maybe you have tried to quit before but you were not successful. This time, when you decide to quit, make your reasons for Allah. Make your reason for perfecting your deen, strengthening your faith, and Allah will make it easier for you. Whoever leaves something for the sake of Allah, Allah will replace it for him with something better. It will be difficult to quit, especially if you have been a smoker for years, but it is a struggle worth taking.
