Another of my Muslim acquaintances in Cairo I frequently met at the house of a mutual friend, where, though he was in most respects very bigoted, he was in the habit of indulging in wine. For some time he refrained from this gratification when I was present; but at length my presence became so irksome to him, that he ventured to enter into an argument with me on the subject of the prohibition. The only answer I could give to his question, "Why is wine forbidden?"--was in the words of the Ḳur-án, "Because it is the source of more evil than profit."[182] This suited his purpose, as I intended it should; and he asked, "What evil results from it?" I answered, "Intoxication and quarrels, &c."--"Then," said he, "if a man take not enough to intoxicate him there is no harm;"--and finding that I acquiesced by silence, he added, "I am in the habit of taking a little; but never enough to intoxicate. Boy, bring me a glass."--He was the only Muslim, however, whom I have heard to argue against the absolute interdiction of inebriating liquors. 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;[183] an injunction somewhat similar to one in the Bible;[184] 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."[185] 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!