"...interruption in a natural process...

"...interruption in a natural process, such that a course contrary to it follows ...and of its extensions is intoxication ( سكر ( sukr )) that comes about in the (natural) process of thinking and intellection..." [^6] The late mystic-scholar Sultan 'Ali, in his Qur'an commentary Bayan al- Sa'ada Fi Maqamat al-'Ibada says: والسكر من السكر بمعني السد ويسمي الحالة الحاصلة من استعمال شيء من السكرات سكرا لسدها طرق تصرف العقل في القوي وطرق انقياد القوي للعقل, ولا اختصاص لها بالخمر العينبية المعروفة بل كل مايحصل من تلك الحالة شربا او اكلا او تدخينا او غير ذلك فهو خمر النفس سواء حصل منه السكر المعروف كا الفقاع والمعصيرات المتخذة من غير العنب وكالبنج و الجرس والافيون او لا كالحرص و الامل والحب و الشهوة والغضب و الحسد و البخل و الغم و الفرح والنعاس والكسل الغاليه بحيث يغلب مقتضاها علي مقتضي العقل بل الحالة الحاصلة المانعه من نفاذ حكم العقل وتدبيره سكر النفس من اي شيء كانت ومن اي سبب حصلت The word 'sukr' stems from the word 'sakr' meaning 'encumbrance;' and the state gotten by taking an intoxicant is known as 'sukr' because it encumbers and closes the channels of the intellect's influence on the other faculties of the human being and (hinders) the paths of their subordination to it.

And intoxicants do not specifically relate to the well-known brandy (for example); rather, all those things through which the state of intoxication is attained, whether by means of drinking, eating, smoking or other than that, are called the intoxicants of the nafs, no matter whether the common intoxication that comes about through the intake of beer and extracts gotten from other than grapes and the usage of narcotics and opium, is attained thereby or not.

An example of the latter is when intoxication comes about through overwhelming greed, hope, love, desire, anger, jealousy, stinginess, sorrow, happiness, slumber or laziness, such that the requisites of these characteristics overpower the dictate of the intellect; rather (any) state gotten that hampers the execution of the intellect's command and control is sukrun nafs, regardless of its entity and cause ...

[^7] `Abd al-Razzaq Qashani in his Qur'an commentary presents the following explanation for the verse under discussion: )لا تقربو الصلاة) اي لا تقربو مقام الحضور والمناجاة مع الله في حال كونكم (سكارئ) من نوم الغفلة او من خمورر الهوئ ومحبة الدنيا (حتئ تعلموا ما تقولون) في مناجاتكم ولا تشتغل قلوبكم باشغال الدنيا وساوسها...

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