90Let’s start with alcohol, because everyone as-
sumes that all alcohol is absolutely prohibited for
all Muslims. In Arabic the word assumed to mean
alcohol is khamr. There’s a long- standing historical
discussion about what khamr means and whether
or not it’s prohibited. An extremely early tafsir (exe -
gesis) of the Qur’an was by Imam Abu Bakr al- Jasas,
who hailed from the Hanafi school of jurisprudence
within the Sunni denomination of Islam. The
Hanafi school is known to be the fi rst school of
interpretation and therefore the closest in prox-
imity to the time of the Prophet. In his interpreta-
tion of the Qur’an, al- Jasas discusses the linguistic
meaning of khamr at length and elaborates on why
for Hanafi s a literal interpretation of the word
covers only a prohibition on wine from grapes. This
means that for the jurists of this fi rst school, it was
permitted— and still is for those who follow the
early Hanafi s—to consume any form of alcohol
other than wine. Among the Hanafi s, this view is
ascribed to Abu Ja’far al- Tahawi, who in turn as-
cribes it directly to the founder of the Hanafi school,
Abu Hanifah, and his two students Abu Yusuf
and Muhammad. Once again, and I cannot be
too careful here, I mention this without prejudice,
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