Dr. Monzer Kahf, a prominent economist and counselor states: Looking for a verse from the Qur’an or a Saying from the Sunnah, regarding tobacco or smoking is incorrect because tobacco smoking is a new thing that was not existing at the time of revelation. The same in fact applies to drugs.

  1. The rules that are very well established in the Qur’an and the Sunnah is that any thing that is established, by human research, mind and experience, as harmful, is then Haram. This is an unquestionable principle on whose basis we say that cigarette smoking is Haram and consequently, producing it and selling it is also Haram.
  2. The basic difference between those who claim it is Makruh (disliked) and us who say it is Haram is a matter of information. 20 years ago the matter was not yet well established! And those who claim it is only Makruh still live in that era. But today it has become firmly established that it is harmful to the health, to the children, to the environment, to the cultivable land and to the pocket too. This is why it is confirmedly HARAM.
  3. The point that advanced countries do not prohibit it yet does not stand as an argument because they do not prohibit many other things on the ground of freedom. But the Shari’ah came to re-structure human behavior in a way that makes them pure and clean and therefore better. Hence, any thing that is harmful is prohibited in Shari’ah, also prohibited and self inflicting harm including suicide.