The Ruling on Beer

Question

Question: Nowadays people declare beer to be merely a cold drink, and they also say that there is no intoxication in it at all, that it is the best thing for the heat. In the same way, people eat tobacco in a betel-leaf chew: if they swallow the saliva, intoxication begins in it?

Answer

I do not know its reality (its constituent ingredients). Four kinds of intoxicating drink are haram, even if it is a single drop of it and no intoxication arises from it. Apart from these, if it is intoxicating, it is prohibited; otherwise it is not. Beer should be investigated under this general rule.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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