Allah Most High describes the harmful nature of alcohol in the Holy Qur’an: يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الْخَمْرِ وَالْمَيْسِرِ ۖ قُلْ فِيهِمَا إِثْمٌ كَبِيرٌ وَمَنَافِعُ لِلنَّاسِ وَإِثْمُهُمَا أَكْبَرُ مِنْ نَفْعِهِمَا “They will ask you about alcoholic drinks and gambling. Say, ‘There is great wrong in both of them and also certain benefits for mankind. But the wrong in them is greater than the benefit.’” (Al-Baqarah, 2:219) An article in today’s Independent on Sunday states: New research from the Department of Health underlines how excess alcohol affects almost every aspect of British life. More than 2.6m children in the UK now live with a parent who drinks at hazardous levels. Mortality rates from liver disease among under-75s rose by 16 per cent between 2001 and 2009, new statistics show. And lost productivity because of hung over staff cost businesses £1.7bn a year. Medical experts in Britain are calling for a minimum price on alcohol to dissuade people from binge drinking which they partly attribute to the wide availability of cheap booze. This solution of using high prices to control demand …

Halal meat has become the latest battleground in the clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. There was a media frenzy recently over reports that halal meat was unknowingly being served to the British public with the Daily Mail claiming ‘Britain goes halal’. According to the Mail, “Animal welfare campaigners have long called for a ban on the traditional Islamic way of preparing meat.” Interestingly halal meat is singled out in these articles with no real focus on Jews and kosher meat except in the small print. This shows that Islamic practices rather than any sincere concern for animal welfare is at the heart of such articles. Yesterday’s Independent waded in to the halal meat debate with an article by Johann Hari under the headline ‘The religious excuse for barbarity.’ Unlike the tabloid press more prominence was given to kosher meat alongside halal meat with emphasis on religion in general being used to inflict animal cruelty. Hari as an atheist naturally distances himself from any religious guidance on the slaughtering of animals and instead falls back to science and personal bias …