Visiting an alcoholic drinks factory for academic purposes
7-9-2006 | IslamWeb
Question:
Dear scholar, Assamualaikum, i'm a student who learned a beverage subject at a university, there i learned the type of alcoholic drink and how to produced it. I also will make a visit to alcoholic drink factory. Is it permissible for me to learn it and visit the factory?
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.
It is forbidden to go to a factory where intoxicants are produced as Allaah Says (what means): {And when you (Muhammad) see those who engage in a false conversation about Our Verses (of the Quran) by mocking at them, stay away from them till they turn to another topic. And if the devil causes you to forget, then after the remembrance sit not you in the company of the polytheists and wrongdoers, etc.} [Quran 6:68]. Allaah further Says (what means): {And it has already been revealed to you in the Book (this Quran) that when you hear the Verses of Allaah being denied and mocked at, then sit not with them, until they engage in a talk other than that; (but if you stayed with them) certainly in that case you would be like them.} [Quran 4:140].
Imaam Al-Qurtubi 
said: "This is evidence that it is an obligation to avoid the disobedient and sinful people when they commit evil, because if one does not avoid them, it means that he is pleased with them… Any person who sits in a meeting where an act of disobedience is committed and does not forbid them from it, then he is sinful like them… If one is not able to forbid them from evil, he should at least not sit with them so that he will not be considered among the people of this verse (i.e. so that the above verse will not be applicable to him)."
There is no doubt that the factory where intoxicants are produced is a place of disobedience to Allaah, and going to such place is in contradiction to the obligation of forbidding evil, the least of which is to detest it with one's heart. Moreover, a person is not safe that a punishment from Allaah would not befall that place when he goes there and he will perish like them.
As regards studying the method of producing intoxicants, then if the studies are just reading from a book without really practicing how the intoxicants are produced and the purpose of studying is acceptable, like studying its ingredients and knowing its seriousness, disadvantages and harms, and then warning people against them [intoxicants], then we hope that this is permissible. However, if the studies involve sitting in a lesson where the method of producing intoxicants is explained, then this place is a place of disobedience and sin and one should not sit in it, as this is propagating the sin and the way it is produced.
For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 83021, 81567 and 81461.
Allaah Knows best.