It is the tendency of every addicted smoker, when asked to quit, to say, “I think, I can leave cigarette forever, but to think, I need a cigarette.” Beyond that they never think as to how cigarette smoking is detrimental to health, as to how it is no less than slow poison that kills gradually. A smoker generally becomes slave to his cigarette when he gets addicted to it. He does not remain in a position to control his sense and reasoning. Eminent scholar Yusuf al Qardhawi once said, “In cigarette besides monetary and bodily harm there is yet another harm and that is the psychological harm…he becomes slave to his cigarette and could not leave it even if he wants to give it up. If he doesn’t find his cigarette, his mind stops working.”
Cigarette contains poisonous ingredients such as nicotine, tar, carbon-monoxide, arsenic, benzopyrene, benzene, cadmium, ammonia, acetone, formaldehyde, etc. These all are swallowed in small proportions with each new cigarette the smoker takes. These toxic materials keep accumulating with the passage of time to result in gradual killing of human cells, tissues and organs.
As for nicotine only, it is proved that consumption of only one milligram of it is fatal. The Holy Prophet (may Allah bless and greet him) said once, “The thing which in large quantity brings nasha is prohibited even in small quantities.” Likewise the injunctions of ‘Do not kill yourselves, Allah is indeed merciful to you’ (4:29), ‘Do not cast yourselves, with your own hands, into destruction’ (2:195) also elucidate: As suicide is haram so is the gradual-suicide; as poison is haram, slow-poison too is. (“Razing Castles of Smoking” by Khan Yasir (Radiance, 27 July 2008)
As per Free Press Journal report (19 May 2008), “Researchers have shown that exposure to cigarette-smoke (mind the word of the report it is “cigarette-smoke” not only smoking) slows production of a protein called FANCAZ in lung cells. This protein plays a key role in repairing damage to DNA, and causing healthy cells to commit suicide before they go on to become cancerous.” The report thwarts a widespread mistaken belief that double and triple filtered or low-tar cigarettes are safe. It observes that more or less low-tar cigarette smoker also inhales the same amount of tar, nicotine and other cancerous elements as a normal cigarette smoker does.
Islam forbids everything that is harmful. Allah said, “Do not kill yourself. Allah is Merciful unto you.” (Surat al-Nisaa’ 4:29) The Prophet (may Allah bless and greet him) said: “There should be no harming or reciprocating harm”. The Prophet also said: “There is no harm or causing of harm (in Islam).” Muhammad (may Allah bless and greet him) also said: “A person will not be able to move on the Day of Judgment until he is asked about … his body as to what he engaged it in.”
Smoking also goes against the saying of the Prophet (may Allah bless and greet him): “Your body has a right on you.” It was narrated that the Prophet said: “Allah forbids you to trade gossip, to ask too many questions and to waste money.” And Allah forbids wasteful extravagance when He said: “And eat and drink but waste not by extravagance, certainly He (Allah) likes not Al Musrifoon (those who waste by extravagance) [al-A’raaf 7:31] And He described the slaves of the Most Merciful as follows: “And those who, when they spend, are neither extravagant nor niggardly, but hold a medium (way) between those (extremes)” [al-Furqaan 25:67] The money that is spent on cigarettes is used on buying a harmful stuff and is therefore an extravagance. Allah said: “… and do not be extravagant wasters. Those who are extravagant are kinsmen of Satan.” (Surat al-Israa’ 17:26-27). (“Smoking in the Light of Islam” by S.R Siddiqui, Radiance, 22 Feb 2009)
According to an earlier WHO report, “About 50,000 teenagers across Asia take up smoking daily.” According to another WHO estimation, in the next generation nearly 500 million women will take up smoking, a majority of them will be in developing countries. Most disturbing fact is that quitting-rate among the Asians is negligible: As per one study, only two per cent Indian smokers have given up smoking. Quitting-rate is far better in the west. In UK it is 40%, in USA and Canada it is 30% and in Poland 25%.”
According to Muhammad Al-Jibaly, “A smoker puts himself in a selective-exile, creating a spiritual distance and hostility between him and good people and a closeness to the evil people.” Be it casual smoker or addicted chain smoker, it requires strong will and determination to quit smoking. During the time of the Prophet (may Allah bless and greet him) when verses prohibiting the liquor were revealed then at that point of time people threw away the wine glasses which were at their lips, they spat out the wine from their mouth. Some allowed their fingers inside the throat – to vomit – and vomited out the wine which they had drunk just before reaching the news of this revelation. It is hereby necessary to follow the same with strong will power and the inspiration to throw away the cigarettes from mouth, from pockets, from house and from life so as to never smoke again.