Question and Answer Details

Answer

As to whether smoking is haram or not is left up to the Islamic scholars to tell you. However, given the latest reports on the damaging effects of smoking on human health, some scholars have downgraded smoking from just being makruh to haram. Again, we strongly suggest that you not get lost in that debate to justify your actions. Just stop smoking! But how?

Actually, the two reasons you gave us for smoking are quite common reasons that other teenagers and even adults give for why they smoke: peer pressure and relaxation. However, we are sure that this is not the first time you are hearing that peer pressure could be dangerous to your health! Think about it. Is it really worth it to hang around with people who think damaging one's health is actually cool? If they pressure you to smoke today how can you be sure that they will not encourage you to join in other potentially harmful behavior? If you want to test the friendship you have with them, stop smoking and see how they treat you. Insha'allah they will still be your friends once you get past the explanations of why you stopped smoking. But if they stop being close to you and think you are uncool because you do not smoke, Allah (swt) will guide you to better friends insha'allah.

Nicotine is a stimulant drug and it is addictive. Interestingly, nicotine both stimulates and relaxes but in the end, its addictive qualities outweigh both the temporary stimulation or the relaxation. You think that smoking takes away all of your tension because nicotine triggers the release of dopamine. Any book on phsysiology will help you to learn that dopamine is a chemical in the brain that is associated with feelings of pleasure. But, as we said before, those are only temporary feelings. Over time, the user does not immediately feel pleasure and thus has to smoke more or intake more nicotine to realize a satisfactory level of pleasure. If you really want to ease your tension, try moderate levels of exercise and participate in sports. You will be amazed how relaxed you feel from engaging in athletic activities!

Think about all of what we have said. If you are still not convinced, visit the two websites below. We warn you that the website, "Quitnow" has graphic, scary images of body parts affected from smoking!

http://www.quitnow.info.au/
http://www.givingupsmoking.co.uk/

And Allah (Swt) knows best.