K-4.9: Selling Grapes to a Winemaker

It is unlawful to sell grapes to someone who will make wine from them. (O: Like grapes in this is the sale of dates, bread, wheat, or barley, whenever one knows that this (A: i.e. alcoholic drink) will result, or thinks it will. If there is doubt or if one merely imagines it, then the transaction is merely offensive. (N: Think (zann) means to believe it probable, doubt (shakk) means one is undecided, and imagine (wahm) means to merely consider it possible.) Selling in such cases is unlawful or offensive because it is a means to disobedience, whether certain or suspected (A: means meaning an instrumental cause, as opposed to something which is not instrumental, such as renting a house to a drunkard, which is not unlawful because it is not a cause, though it is unlawful to rent a building to someone who intends to open a bar, for example). Tirmidhi relates that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) cursed whoever drinks wine, gives it to others to drink, sells it, buys it, presses it for another, transports it, receives it, or eats its price.)