Smoking is one of the obsessions that are causing a lot of problems and harm these days. It has spread like wildfire. Almost all nations of the world have now started to fight smoking, because it is very harmful and dangerous for health.
Some of the injurious effects of smoking as hereunder:
v It is one of the major causes of lung cancer and other associated diseases. It is also one of the major causes of death.
v Tobacco smoke also contributes to a number of cancers.
v Tar coats your lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer. 20-a-day smoker breathes in up to a full cup (210 g) of tar in a year.
v Changing to low-tar cigarettes does not help because smokers usually take deeper puffs and hold the smoke in for longer, dragging the tar deeper into their lungs.
v One in two lifetime smokers dies from their addiction to smoking. Half of these deaths occur in middle ages.
v The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette you smoke temporarily increases your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heart and blood vessels.
v This can cause heart attacks and strokes. It slows down your blood flow, cutting off oxygen to your feet and hands. Some smokers end up having their limbs
amputated.
v Carbon monoxide robs your muscles, brain and body tissue of oxygen, making your whole body and especially your heart work harder. Over time, your airways swell up and let less air into your lungs.
v Smoking is a slow way to death. The strain put on your body by smoking often causes years of suffering. Emphysema is an illness that slowly rots your lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure.
v Lung cancer from smoking is caused by the tar in tobacco smoke. Those who smoke are ten times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers.
v Heart diseases and strokes are also more common among smokers than non-smokers.
v Smoking causes fat deposits to narrow and block blood vessels leading to heart attack.
v Smoking causes around one in five deaths from heart disease.
v In younger people, three out of four deaths from heart disease are due to smoking.
v Medical researches have proven harmful effects of smoking mothers on their children.
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 forbade 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).
Extravagance (in Islam) means spending on something haraam.
Spending money on cigarettes is a waste of resources as well. Muhammad (may Allah bless and greet him) said: “A person will not be able to move on the Day of Judgment until he is asked about ….. as to how he spent what he owned.”
If the money which is spent on smoking worldwide were to be collected, it could have saved entire populations who have died of starvation. Is there anyone more foolish than the one who holds a dollar bill and sets it afire? What is the difference between him and the one who smokes? Indeed, the smoker is more foolish, because the folly of the one who burns a dollar bill ends there, while the one who smokes burns his money and also harms his body.
Cigarette butts which are thrown away cause fires. Other disasters have been caused in other ways. For example, a house was burned down with its occupants inside when a man lit his cigarette while there was a gas leak.
The Prophet (may Allah bless and greet him) forbade those who had eaten garlic or onions from coming to the mosque so that they would not offend their fellow-worshippers with their smell. The smell of onions and garlic is easier to bear than the smell of the smoker and his mouth.
The offensive smell caused by smoking is a source of pain to the worshippers of Allah – among them humans and angels. The angels are offended and suffer from the same pain as the human beings suffer from. Allah said:
“Those who cause harm to believing men and women without any reason do a great sin.” (Surat al-Ahzaab, 33:58).
Keeping all this in view, it can be undoubtedly established that smoking is an evil. It is not permissible to indulge in it, or buy and sell it, or even to offer it to others.