The Misinterpretation of 5:90

"God only said avoid, not prohibit." The same word governs idol worship - and the sentence's own grammar names what you are fleeing.

I. The Verse and the Claim

"O you who believe, intoxicants, and gambling, and the altars of idols, and the games of chance are abominations of the devil; you shall avoid them, that you may succeed." (5:90)

Because the verse commands ijtanibu - avoid, stay away from - rather than using a formula like "prohibited for you," some interpreters have claimed intoxicants are merely discouraged, not forbidden. The claim survives neither the verse's grammar, nor the word's Quranic usage, nor the verses on either side of it.

II. What the Command Grammatically Flees

In the Arabic, the command carries a singular pronoun - ijtanibuhu, "avoid it" - though four items were just listed. Had the four been the direct object, the plural would be expected; the singular points at the phrase just before it: this work of the devil. The four items are declared one category - the devil's handiwork - and the believer is ordered away from the entire category as such. Read that way, the "softness" evaporates: God is not rating beverages; He is identifying whose project intoxicants belong to, and commanding you off the project. The next verse continues with the devil as the subject and states his objectives:

"The devil wants to provoke animosity and hatred among you through intoxicants and gambling, and to distract you from remembering GOD, and from observing the Contact Prayers (Salat). Will you then refrain?" (5:91)

"Will you then refrain?" is not the language of a gentle preference. It is an ultimatum closing a case.

III. "Avoid" Is Prohibition Language in the Quran

The decisive test: what else does God command us to "avoid"? "...You shall avoid the abomination of idol worship, and avoid bearing false witness" (22:30). By the interpreters' logic, idolatry - the one unforgivable offense (4:48) - would be merely "discouraged," since God "only said avoid." The absurdity measures the argument. In the Quran's idiom, commanding avoidance of a named abomination is prohibition at its most emphatic: it forbids not only the act but the approach to it. And the surrounding revelation removes any residual doubt: 2:219 rules that in intoxicants and gambling "there is a gross sin" whose sinfulness "far outweighs their benefit," and 4:43 bars the intoxicated from the Salat itself. Sin, gross; category, satanic; approach, banned; prayer, blocked. The translation's header over 5:90 states the sum plainly: "Intoxicants and Gambling Prohibited."

One question remains for the claimant: if "avoid them" left intoxicants lawful, what exactly would compliance look like - avoiding what you consume? The command cannot be obeyed and the substance kept. That is what prohibition is.