Alcohol in Pakistan: An Anecdote

I recently read The Islamization of the Law in Pakistan, a book first published in the mid 1990s and last year re-issued in a second edition.

Here is a random anecdote, taken from the chapter on criminal law. The author, Rubya Mehdi, has just recounted that the military government issued a prohibition order in 1979, but it did allow for the consumption of alcohol under circumstances of medical necessity. [Somehow, contemporary US politics and marijuana came to my mind.]

Then there is this, which I'll just quote verbatim without further comment:

A petition in 1983 objected to the allowance under the Ordinance for medicinal use of intoxicating liquors. Justice Salaluddim Ahmed, however, quoted from a few verses of the Quran in order to show that God has permitted the use of 'strictly prohibited things under conditions of necessity', for example, he said that though it is prohibited for a man to see any portion of a woman's body, when a female patient is suffering from acute pain and is likely to die and no female doctor is available it is permissible for a male doctor to examine the concealed portions of the body. The petition was dismissed.

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