Is Cigarette Smoking Haram or Halal?

Rabat – As foreigners living in rural Morocco, we often struggle to make sense of our current environment and culture. We constantly strive to align our preconceived notions with the realities of our daily lives. For example, we believed that under Islam, causing harm to one’s body was forbidden. However, countless cigarette smokers fill cafes and streets in Morocco, a country that is over 99% Muslim. That statement being a fact, we are left with the original question and the title to this article, is cigarette smoking haram or halal?

In Islam, hurting, destroying or killing oneself and others is forbidden. According to the American Lung Association, there are approximately 600 ingredients in cigarettes. These include arsenic (used in rat poison), butane (lighter fluid) and tar (used for paving roads). Using common sense, inhaling these things into the human lung day after day cannot be healthy. Among other things, smoking causes lung and mouth cancer, heart disease and tuberculosis and the science is indisputable. In fact, according to the World Health Organization:

1- Tobacco kills up to half of its users.

2- Tobacco kills around 6 million people each year. More than 5 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600,000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.

In Islam, a wasteful person is a brother of evil and charity is required of all Muslims. The cost of a pack (20 cigarettes) of a popular brand in Morocco is MAD 25. The current minimum wage for the private sector worker is MAD 13.46 per hour. That means that the lowest paid worker in Morocco must work 2 hours to buy one pack of cigarettes. Milk costs MAD 7 per liter. So, for every pack of cigarettes a person buys, he could instead buy 2 liters of milk for a poor person. The 2014 unemployment rate in Morocco is 8.7%.

Cleanliness is emphasized as part of Islam and no one is allowed to smoke in or near a Mosque. Smoking makes breath smells unclean. That same smell soaks in to the upholstery of vehicles and the walls and furniture in houses. It yellows and then blackens the smoker’s lips, gums and fingertips. In time it changes the voice of a person from clear and clean to harsh and raspy. It can also cause tar-like phlegm that many spit out onto the ground.

Anyone can confirm the facts and statistics stated here. The real issue is whether buying and smoking cigarettes is haram or halal under Islam. Certainly, this question begs an answer from someone more learned than we.