means of acquiring property: “They ask thee about intoxicants and games of chance. Say: In both of these is great sin and (some) advantage for men, and their sin is greater than their advantage” (2:219) “Intoxicants and games of chance … are only an uncleanness, the devil’s work; so shun it that you may succeed” (5:90). Intoxicating liquors and gambling are mentioned together in both places, and one of the reasons for their prohibition is that they are an aid to creating mischief and enmity between members of the same society: “The devil desires only to cause enmity and hatred among you by means of intoxicants and games of chance” (5:91). All kinds of lotteries and card games etc., involving a stake, however small the sum involved, fall within the definition of games of chance, and are therefore prohibited by Islām. They not only promote habits of indolence and are thus a negation of honest labour, but also reduce some members of society to penury while others prosper at their expense. Usury, which is dealt with later on, is also prohibited for the same reason.
The Holy Qur’ān gives full rights of disposal of property to its owner, whether male or female, but at the same time, it requires the owner to be most careful in spending it. There are many injunctions of a general nature to that effect. Thus, speaking of the righteous servants of God (‘ibād al-Raḥman) it says: “And they who, when they spend, are neither extravagant nor parsimonious, and the just mean is ever between these” (25:67). And elsewhere: “And make not thy hand to be shackled to thy neck, nor stretch it forth to the utmost limit of its stretching forth, lest thou sit down blamed, stripped off ” (17:29). But it does not content itself with these general directions, and gives society or the state a right to interfere when money is being squandered by its owner: “And make not over your property, which Allāh has made a (means of) support (qiyām) for you, to the weak of understanding (sufahā’), and maintain them out of it, and clothe them and give them a good education” (4:5). Here certain owners of property are called sufahā’, and the community or the state is enjoined not to give such people control of their property, which is here described as your property, because Allāh has made it “for you a means of support”; and the rule is laid down that these owners of