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Comment by kranner | Hacker News Reader

You'll have to account for increased rates of smoking in both Muslim-majority countries and Muslim populations in non-Muslim-majority countries.

From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360407/

> A fifth of the world's population is Muslim, and most Muslims live in areas where the prevalence of smoking is high and often increasing. But even among the many Muslims living in Europe, smoking prevalence (particularly among men) remains high. For example, in England in 2004 the overall prevalence of smoking was 40% in Bangladeshi men and 29% in Pakistani men compared with 24% among the male general population.

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That's interesting. I believe smoking is discouraged in Islam, so I wonder why the uptake is higher. Guessing it's a general education issue?

Tobacco companies actively and aggressively advertise and market their products in LEDC countries:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1363897/

Smoking not so much, alcohol is considered "haram", you see smoking to be a lot more prevalent.

Smoking, like alcohol and other vices are prohibited.

It is in fact an unfortunate reality that is a matter of miseducation for those who are not victim to the statistical conflation of nationality as an indicator of belief.

As a Muslim and live in a country with 90% Muslim, I can tell, most of the people are Muslim, because they have a Muslim parent. Rape, corruption, addiction, sexual harassments, hate speech are common things here. No Muslim can do these. 5 times prayers (Salah) in a day is absolutely mandatory, absolutely no excuse for Muslim. But most people don't even care, including me :)

Surely smoking wasn’t a thing back then, looks up Wikipedia

> The Spanish introduced tobacco to Europeans in about 1528

Perhaps there is an inference of prohibition

Islam tends to prohibit things that "affect" your mind, or are addictive, as well as things that might harm the body since the body is apparently "on-loan" from god. That's why I thought Smoking would fall under that. \

After doing some searching, it does seem that Smoking is mostly considered to be prohibited in Islamic Law, now people likely don't follow that but that's a different story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_fatwa

As far as it goes for Muslims in Pakistan, laws/rules given by religion are mostly take literally instead of what they might mean. Drinking is forbidden, that's agreed upon, as far as other drugs go its up if the person is following teachings of any religious scholar.

Smoking is therefore not considered forbidden (haram) in the same sense as alcohol. I am a little too sensitive to drugs and smoke and betel leaves ('paan') make my head go south just as much.

So it correctly is issue of education I would say.

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