Histories tell us that some of the early followers of the Prophet indulged in wine, holding the text above referred to as indecisive; and that Moḥammad was at first doubtful upon this subject appears from another text, in which his followers were told not to come to prayer when they were drunk, until they should know what they would say;[162] an injunction nearly similar to one in the Bible[163]: but when frequent and severe contentions resulted from their use of wine, the following more decided condemnation of the practice was pronounced:--"O ye who have become believers! verily wine and lots and images and divining-arrows are an abomination of the work of the Devil; therefore, avoid them, that ye may prosper."[164] This law is absolute; its violation in the smallest degree is criminal. The punishment ordained by the law for drinking (or, according to most doctors, for even tasting) wine or spirits, or inducing intoxication by any other means, on ordinary occasions, is the infliction of eighty stripes in the case of a free man, and forty in that of a slave: but if the crime be openly committed in the course of any day of the month of Ramaḍán, when others are fasting, the punishment prescribed is death! The prohibition of wine hindered many of the Prophet's contemporaries from embracing his religion. It is said that the famous poet El-Aạshà, who was one of them, delayed to join this cause on this account, until death prevented him. A person passing by his tomb (at Menfooḥah, in El-Yemámeh), and observing that it was moist, asked the reason, and was answered that the young men of the place, considering him still as their cup-companion, drank wine over his grave, and poured his cup upon it.[165]