master eats.46 Islām therefore allows no distinction between superiors and subordinates in sitting at the same table at meals, as in standing in the same row at prayers. In its physical as well as spiritual aspects, it is essentially the religion of democracy.

SEC. 2 — DRINKS

Intoxicating liquors

The drink prohibited in the Holy Qur’ān is described under the name khamr.47 Khamr is differently explained as meaning what intoxicates, of the expressed juice of grapes, or the juice of grapes when it has effervesced and thrown up froth, and become freed therefrom and still, or it has common application to intoxicating expressed juice of anything, or any intoxicating thing that clouds or obscures the intellect (LL.). And it is added: “The general application is the more correct, because khamr was forbidden when there was not any khamr of grapes, the beverage of its inhabitants being prepared only from dates in Madīnah … it is sometimes prepared from grains” (ibid.). The wider sense of khamr, as prepared from other things besides grapes, is borne out by the Holy Qur’ān as quoted in the next paragraph. According to ‘Umar, wine, when prohibited, was made of five things, grapes, dates, wheat, barley and honey.48 Hence khamr is intoxicating liquor prepared from anything.

Intoxicating liquors are first spoken of in deprecatory terms towards the close of the Makkah period: “And of the fruits of the palms and the grapes, you obtain from them intoxicants and goodly provision” (16:67). Intoxicants are here spoken of in contrast to goodly provision. The prohibition against their use, however, belongs to the Madīnah period and the earliest revelation on this point is that contained in the first long chapter revealed at Madīnah: “They ask thee about intoxicants and games of chance. Say: In both of them is great sin and (some) advantage for men, and their sin is greater than their advantage” (2:219). This was the first stage in the prohibition of wine, but it was more of a recommendatory nature as it only says that the disadvantages of the use of intoxicating liquors preponderate over their advantages. The next stage was that in which the Muslims