Khamr
Traditional announcement of the khamr prohibition in Medina
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The drink poured away in the best-known account was fermented from dates, because grape wine was reportedly scarce in Medina.
A herald in the streets
The listing places the final prohibition in 626. In the episode preserved in Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad had a herald announce in Medina that khamr — translated as intoxicants or strong drink — had been prohibited.
Anas ibn Malik, who was serving a date-based drink in Abu Talha’s house, was ordered by Abu Talha to take it outside and spill it. Anas said it flowed through Medina’s streets.
A parallel report in Sahih Muslim says Muhammad forbade both drinking and selling the wine, after which people brought their stocks into the streets and poured them away.
The year is not secure
No consulted early source supplies a Gregorian year, so 626 cannot be treated as established.
Nöldeke’s critical chronology associates the general prohibition with the Banu Nadir campaign in Rabi I 4 AH, approximately 625, while a modern scholarly study argues instead for 8 AH, before the conquest of Mecca.
The hadith collections preserving the street-pouring episode were compiled generations after Muhammad; they are primary sources for the Sunni tradition, not contemporary eyewitness documents.
Khamr is not “alcohol”
Qur’an 5:90 instructed believers to avoid khamr, along with gambling, sacrificial stones and divining arrows.
The Qur’anic text presents a divine injunction and the hadith presents Muhammad announcing and enforcing it, so calling the episode solely his personal decree blurs the distinction.
Khamr is not perfectly equivalent to the modern category “alcohol” either: jurists later debated which fermented drinks the prohibition covered.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Date disputed
How this was checked
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Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~0625.
What the sources leave uncertain
- No consulted early source supplies a Gregorian year for the announcement, so 626 cannot be treated as secure.
- Nöldeke’s critical chronology associates the general prohibition with the Banu Nadir campaign in Rabi I 4 AH, approximately 625. A modern scholarly study instead argues for 8 AH, before the conquest of Mecca, illustrating substantial chronological disagreement.
- The hadith collections preserving the street-pouring episode were compiled generations after Muhammad. They are primary sources for the Sunni tradition but not contemporary eyewitness documents.
- Khamr is not perfectly equivalent to the modern chemical and legal category “alcohol”; jurists later debated which fermented drinks the prohibition covered.