Moslems and Gold Cups

[Badtz_Maru]

I read that the Koran states that drinking from a gold cup is as unclean as eating the excrement of an unclean animal.

What’s the reasoning behind this?

[Gaudere]

[Moderator Hat ON]

I think this is better suited to General Questions.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

[MEBuckner]

Let’s make sure your initial premise is correct–where did you read that, what exactly did it say, and what chapter and verse (if that’s the correct terminology) did it cite? From the New Testament (not the Koran), Revelation 17:3-5 says

Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead: MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. (Emphasis added)

I don’t think the idea here is that there’s something inherently evil about gold cups, but rather that the evil symbolized by the woman (the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant churches, the United Nations, Wal-Mart, the Teletubbies, or–I throw in this last one strictly for laughs–the city of Rome which was the seat of the Imperial government which was actively persecuting the Christians at the time Revelation was written) is outwardly brilliant and wealthy, but is in fact inwardly filled with wickedness and corruption. A quick search of an on-line Koran didn’t seem to turn up anything about gold cups being wicked; in fact, Chapter 43 (“Ornaments of Gold”) says that those in Paradise will have “golden bowls and drinking-cups and therein shall be what their souls yearn after and (wherein) the eyes shall delight” (43:71). So the quick answer probably is that the Koran says no such thing.

[Badtz_Maru]

I found out about this in the Crichton novel ‘Eaters of the Dead’. The main character is a Moslem, and at one point he mentions that he would never drink from a golden cup, and there is a footnote for that part stating that Moslems believed doing so to be an unclean act. I don’t recall if it referenced a verse from the Koran - I highly doubt it would have anything to do with that verse in Revelations, since the New Testament is not a part of Islam.

[Johanna]

The prohibition originates not from the Qur’ân but from the hadith (sayings of the Prophet). This is another in a very long line of things that people assert came from the Qur’ân but are not in there. This mis-referencing has been going on for many centuries. For example, the phony “Koran” quote as the epigraph to Poe’s poem “Israfel.”

I liked Eaters of the Dead just the same. Crichton ingeniously took on Ibn Fadlan’s style of writing so that the actual Ibn Fadlan text blended seamlessly and invisibly into Crichton’s fiction. You couldn’t tell where the one left off and the other began. And for that matter, “Israfel” is a pretty neat poem too.

[MEBuckner]

And here you go: a page of hadiths, including the following:

Volume 7, Book 69, Number 536:

Narrated Ibn Abi Laila:

While Hudhaita was at Mada’in, he asked for water. The chief of the village brought him a silver vessel. Hudhaifa threw it away and said, "I have thrown it away because I told him not to use it, but he has not stopped using it. The Prophet forbade us to wear clothes of silk or Dibaj, and to drink in gold or silver utensils, and said, ‘These things are for them (unbelievers) in this world and for you (Muslims) in the Hereafter.’ "
Volume 7, Book 69, Number 537:

Narrated Hudhaifa:

The Prophet said, “Do not drink in gold or silver utensils, and do not wear clothes of silk or Dibaj, for these things are for them (unbelievers) in this world and for you in the Hereafter.”
Volume 7, Book 69, Number 538:

Narrated Um Salama:

(the wife of the Prophet) Allah’s Apostle said, “He who drinks in silver utensils is only filling his abdomen with Hell Fire.”
Volume 7, Book 69, Number 539:

Narrated Al-Bara’ bin 'Azib:

Allah’s Apostle ordered us to do seven things and forbade us from seven. He ordered us to visit the sick, to follow funeral processions, (to say) to a sneezer, (May Allah bestow His Mercy on you, if he says, Praise be to Allah), to accept invitations, to greet (everybody), to help the oppressed and to help others to fulfill their oaths. He forbade us to wear gold rings, to drink in silver (utensils), to use Mayathir (silken carpets placed on saddles), to wear Al-Qissi (a kind of silken cloth), to wear silk, Dibaj or Istabraq (two kinds of silk).

To answer the OP, the reasoning seems to be that Muslims shouldn’t be getting too high and mighty with their drinking utensils, jewelry, clothes, and so forth, because there will be plenty of time for that in paradise. In the meantime, I guess, they should be humble and eschew gaudy ostentation in the things of this world.

Of course, going by these sayings of Muhammed can evidently be a bit tricky:

Volume 7, Book 69, Number 534:

Narrated Abu Qatada:

Allah’s Apostle said, “When you drink (water), do not breath in the vessel; and when you urinate, do not touch your penis with your right hand. And when you cleanse yourself after defecation, do not use your right hand.”
[Emphasis added – MEB]
Volume 7, Book 69, Number 535:

Narrated Thumama bin Abdullah:

Anas used to breathe twice or thrice in the vessel (while drinking) and used to say that the Prophet; used to take three breaths while drinking.
[Emphasis added – MEB]