Islam does not acknowledge this absolute freedom and does...

Islam does not acknowledge this absolute freedom and does not permit man to do anything to himself except what Allah has permitted within the limits that the Sharia has determined for him.

Therefore, Allah has said: …and cast not yourselves to perdition with your own hands Qur'an, 2: 195 And, the Prophet (S) said, “ There should be no harm to oneself and no harm to others .” If we supposedly agree with Muslim smokers, who say that there is no any text which prohibits smoking, then we do not agree with them on allowing smoking inside the mosques and other places of prayer, worship and meeting of Muslims. Therefore, smokers must attend these places as non-smokers.

Here comes the problem of their second answer when saying that smoking is not practiced in mosques but in Husayniyyas . To define a Husayniyya for those who do not know it, we say that a Husayniyya is a building built by the Shia and entailed for Imam Husayn (a.s.) where ceremonies of anniversaries of births and deaths of the infallible Imams (a.s.) are held besides the anniversary of Ashura and the Eid al-Ghadir. Other ceremonies of different occasions are also held in the Husayniyya .

These Husayniyyas are often furnished with precious carpets and most of them have a mihrab of prayer. If one of the Shia says that it is permissible to smoke inside a Husayniyya because it is not a mosque, we say that this is a confession that smoking is not permissible in mosques first of all. Secondly, every place in which a prayer is offered is “a mosque”.

When we attend on any occasion in a Husayniyya , we find the meeting full of remembrance of Allah and people praying to Him to send blessings on the and his progeny (peace be on them all), surrounded by the angels who pray Allah to forgive the believers. So, is it nice to pollute such meetings with bad smells that harm people besides the angels?

I myself find it odd from the religious authorities of the Shia who prohibit the playing with chess, but do not prohibit smoking, though there is a great difference between the harms of each of them.

And I find it odd too that one of the grand authorities prohibits his followers by ijtihad , from smoking tobacco as a way of resisting the British companies that promote it, but does not prohibit it again, by ijtihad too, to keep his followers safe from the fatal diseases and the squandering that Allah detests much!!