1/Following up on an interesting point raised by Jonathan AC Brown about Avicenna & wine-drinking, I'd like to offer a few cursory remarks. One: Avicenna drank wine. His penchant for wine drew condemnations from hardnosed jurists & theologians, & drew admirations of orientalists

2/Two: While Avicenna followed the Ḥanafī legal rite, he did not (to the best of my knowledge) justify wine-drinking on religious-legal grounds. That being said, it would have been perfectly valid from a Ḥanafī legal point of view to drink wine.

3/In fact, medieval commentators assumed - perhaps they had access to evidence we no longer do - that Avicenna justified wine-drinking in light of his adherence to the Ḥanafī madhhab.

4/ al-Sijistānī famously remarked: "although drinking wine (sharāb) is a controversial subject, he [i.e., Avicenna] would partake of it on the grounds that he belonged to the Ḥanafī rite."

5/More significantly perhaps is that for Avicenna wine-drinking carries health benefits and could facilitate penetrative philosophical insights.

6/Three: Wine for Avicenna was a drug, the benefit of which belongs to discussions on pharmacology rather than fiqh.

7/Four: Gutas has argued brilliantly that Avicenna's view on the benefit of wine-drinking echoes the the late ancient medical and cultural perspectives of the Greeks. For Avicenna and his Greek predecessors wine is beneficial to the body and soul when taken in moderation.

8/More significantly, wine "helped bring about a balance in the mixture of bodily humours, and generated a mood of well-being and joy."

9/Five: In his the Canon of Medicine Avicenna underscores the medical benefit of wine in terms of humoral pathology:

10/Six: Taken in moderation wine fosters mental activity. Powerful souls according to Avicenna do not get inebriated quickly (only stupid ones do). He writes again in the Canon of Medicine:

11/Seven: In the Autobiography Avicenna is clear that he drank wine in order to aid his philosophical learning:

12/Eight: Avicenna authored a little-known homily in praise of wine titled "Homily on Wine" (khuṭbah fi l-khamr). He also penned a medical treatise on the bodily benefits of wine, titled: K. Siyāsat al-badan wa faḍāʾil asharāb wa manāfiʿihi wamaḍārrih. END.