We should welcome Shisha ban

by Mohsin Asharia

The Department of Health recently confirmed that shisha cafés will also be affected by the smoking ban on July 1. As expected, the announcement outraged the British Muslim community.

Ibrahim el-Nour from the Edgware Road Association claimed that shisha should be exempt from the ban since it only contains “small amounts of tobacco” and that by enforcing the ban, “the government is showing disregard to the whole community.”

So what should we do? Organise a proshisha demonstration like the pro-Palestine marches we attend? Burn embassies like some Muslims did after the cartoons fiasco? Of course not. Rather, I suggest we support the ban.

Islam teaches that what is beneficial for us is permissible, and what is harmful for us should be avoided. Ayatollah Sistani is of the view that “smoking is not forbidden as such, but anyone who knows that it is harmful to his or her health should refrain.” It’s not rocket science, really. If you know that shisha is really harmful to your health, you should refrain. Sure, as the question to Ayatollah Sistani published in this newsletter on the opposite page shows, it’s not haram if it doesn’t cause considerable harm. But doesn’t it?

A World Health Organization report said that "using a waterpipe to smoke tobacco poses a serious potential health hazard to smokers and others from the smoke emitted,” Dr Alan Shidaheh of the American University, Beirut, said that “every recent study has found that shisha smoke contains large quantities of the chemicals that lead to heart disease, cancer, and addiction in cigarette smokers." That’s pretty harmful.

So why are we so reluctant to follow Ayatollah Sistani’s advice and refrain from that which is harmful? Rather than complaining about the government trying to force shisha cafés out of business and some Western conspiracy against Islam, why don’t we accept that this government is doing a good thing? I find it sad that the West seems to be enforcing Islamic principles more than the Muslims themselves. We go on about how Islam promotes a healthy life, and how not to consume pork or alcohol because they are bad for our health, but we see no problem in smoking shisha for hours on end. And when some scholars do claim that shisha is haram, we are quick to condemn them and twist the words around to mean something else.

It’s time that the Muslim community takes a step in the right direction. Rather than having to rely on government-enforced legislation to eradicate shisha from our community, we should be the ones, as followers of the message of Islam, that should be taking an active role in erasing such harmful effects of society.

Only then will people realise that Islam truly does appreciate the sanctity of human life.

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SHISHA: THE FACTS


Smoking shisha for 45 mins gives 36x more tar, 15x more carbon monoxide and 70% more nicotine than a
cigarette-Thomas Eissenberg, Psychology prof, Virginia C. Uni

Shisha smokers are 5 times more likely to show signs of gum disease- Journal of Periodontology

Men who smoke shisha have 5x higher risk of lung cancer-Jane Henley, epidemiologist, American Cancer Society.