If a Musalman drinks wine, and is seized whilst his breath yet smells of wine, or be brought before the Qāẓī whilst he is yet intoxicated, and two witnesses give evidence that he has drunk wine, scourging is to be inflicted. The punishment is eighty lashes for a free man, and forty lashes for a slave.
Mr. Lane says: “Several stories have been told as to the occasion of Muḥammad’s prohibiting the drinking of wine. Busbequius says: ‘Muḥammad, making a journey to a friend at noon, entered into his house, where there was a marriage feast, and, sitting down with the guests, he observed them to be very merry and jovial, kissing and embracing one another, which was attributed to the cheerfulness of their spirits raised by the wine; so that he blessed it as a sacred thing in being thus an instrument of much love among men. But, returning to the same house the next day, he beheld another face of things, as gore-blood on the ground, a hand cut off, an arm, foot, and other limbs dismembered, which he was told was the effect of the brawls and fightings occasioned by the wine, which made them mad, and inflamed them into a fury, thus to destroy one another. Whereon he changed his mind, and turned his former blessing into a curse, and forbade wine ever after to all his disciples.’ Epist. 3. This prohibition of wine hindered many of the Prophet’s contemporaries from embracing his religion. Yet several of the most respectable of the pagan Arabs, like certain of the Jews and early Christians, abstained totally from wine, from a feeling of its injurious effects upon moral, and, in their climate, upon health; or, more especially, from the fear of being led by it into the commission of foolish and degrading actions. Thus Keys (Qais), the son of Asim, being one night overcome with wine, attempted to grasp the moon, and swore that he would not quit the spot where he stood until he had laid hold of it. After leaping several times with the view of doing so, he fell flat upon his face; and when he recovered his senses, and was acquainted with the cause of his face being bruised, he made a solemn vow to abstain from wine ever after.”—Lane’s Arabian Nights, vol. i. pp. 217, 218.
WITNESS. Arabic shahīd (شهيد), dual shahīdān; pl. shuhadā, or shuhūd.
Terms which are used for witness in legal cases, an account of which is given in the article on [EVIDENCE]; and also for those who die as martyrs for the Muslim faith, or meet with sudden death from any accidental circumstance. [[MARTYR].]
WITR (وتر). Lit. “An odd number.” Witr rakʿahs are an odd number of rakʿahs, 3, 5, or 7, which may be said after the last prayer at night, and before the dawn of day. Usually they are added to the Ṣalātu ʾl-ʿIshā. Imām Abū Ḥanīfah says they are wājib, that is, ordered by God, although they are not authorised by any text in the Qurʾān. But they are instituted by traditions, each of which is generally received as a Ḥadīs̤ Ṣaḥīḥ; and so witr rakʿahs are regarded as being of divine authority. Imām Shāfaʿī, however, considers them to be sunnah only.
The Traditions referred to are:—
The Prophet said: “God has added to your prayers one prayer more: know that it is witr, say it between the Ṣalātu ʾl-ʿIshā and the dawn.”
On the authority of Buzār, it is recorded that the Prophet said: “Witr is wājib upon Muslims,” and in order to enforce the practice, he added: “Witr is right; he who does not observe it is not my follower.”
The Prophet, the Companions, the Tābiʿūn and the Tabaʿu ʾt-Tābiʿīn, all observed it.
The word witr literally means “odd number,” and a tradition says: “God is odd, He loves the odd.”