Re: Identification, assessment, and management of gambling-related harms: summary of NICE guideline
Dear Editor,
I would like to support the recent summary of NICE guidelines regarding the many harms and suffering resulting from gambling:
"Adverse impacts of gambling, known as gambling-related harms, include loss of employment, debt, crime, breakdown of relationships, domestic violence, and suicide. They affect people who gamble, their families and others close to them, and society."
I would like too to support the idea of a "Public Health Approach" stated by NICE and by Fell and colleagues in their Rapid Response of 19th March. However, please allow me to raise and add "a new religious approach" in order to address and prevent this rising complex medical social financial problem / disaster (Gambling) in our society, especially as there will be more gamblers on the way now in our society as a result of the high cost of living, high cost of energy bills and the stopping of a lot of benefits, etc...
I humbly recommend to "utilise" some religious texts which will be effective on the behaviour of some believers who believe in these religious texts. Reminding them of these texts will work wonders and make them stop "THE Vices" they are doing especially when the medical social mental financial harms are exposed and shown to them.
Over the years, I have been using this approach successfully and effectively on many Muslim TV and Muslim radio stations to avoid smoking, drugs, alcohol, harmful unhealthy diets, unhealthy sexual behaviour etc.... This is by bringing them the health medical social data.
If I can give you one example in the issue we are discussing now: Gambling.
I like to mention some religious quotations against Gambling in Islam and in Christianity which will help and will motivate some believers to STOP GAMBLING altogether, especially as many believers are/were not aware of the prohibition and the opposition of their religions to what they are doing.
Gambling in Islam
Gambling is forbidden in the final Holy Book AL QUR'AN :
In the Name of GOD, the most Compassionate, the most Merciful
"O you who believe! Intoxicants (all kinds of alcoholic drinks), gambling, al-Ansab [sacrifices for idols, etc.] and al-Azlam [arrows for seeking luck or decision] are an abomination of Shaytan’s (Satan) handiwork. So avoid (strictly all) that (abomination) in order that you may be successful. Shaytan wants only to excite enmity and hatred between you with intoxicants (alcoholic drink) and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of GOD (Allah) and from al-Salah (the prayer). So, will you not then abstain?”
[Qur'an: Chapter 5-Verses 90-91]
Gambling in The Bible
(1) Gambling directly appeals to covetousness and greed “which is idolatry” according to the Apostle Paul (Colossians 3:5). Gambling breaches the 1st, 2nd, 8th and 10th commandments. It enthrones personal desires in place of God. Jesus warned: “you cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24).
In 1 Timothy 6:10, which states, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."
(1 Corinthians 6:9, 10; Ephesians 5:3, 5) Gamblers hope to gain money through the losses of others, but the Bible condemns coveting other people's possessions. —Exodus 20:17; Romans 7:7; 13:9, 10. Gambling, even for small amounts, can arouse a destructive love of money. —1 Timothy 6:9, 10.
Dr Majid Katme
Retired Medical Doctor
Former President of Islamic Medical Association in UK
TV/RADIO broadcaster
Rapid Response:
Re: Identification, assessment, and management of gambling-related harms: summary of NICE guideline
Dear Editor,
I would like to support the recent summary of NICE guidelines regarding the many harms and suffering resulting from gambling:
"Adverse impacts of gambling, known as gambling-related harms, include loss of employment, debt, crime, breakdown of relationships, domestic violence, and suicide. They affect people who gamble, their families and others close to them, and society."
I would like too to support the idea of a "Public Health Approach" stated by NICE and by Fell and colleagues in their Rapid Response of 19th March. However, please allow me to raise and add "a new religious approach" in order to address and prevent this rising complex medical social financial problem / disaster (Gambling) in our society, especially as there will be more gamblers on the way now in our society as a result of the high cost of living, high cost of energy bills and the stopping of a lot of benefits, etc...
I humbly recommend to "utilise" some religious texts which will be effective on the behaviour of some believers who believe in these religious texts. Reminding them of these texts will work wonders and make them stop "THE Vices" they are doing especially when the medical social mental financial harms are exposed and shown to them.
Over the years, I have been using this approach successfully and effectively on many Muslim TV and Muslim radio stations to avoid smoking, drugs, alcohol, harmful unhealthy diets, unhealthy sexual behaviour etc.... This is by bringing them the health medical social data.
If I can give you one example in the issue we are discussing now: Gambling.
I like to mention some religious quotations against Gambling in Islam and in Christianity which will help and will motivate some believers to STOP GAMBLING altogether, especially as many believers are/were not aware of the prohibition and the opposition of their religions to what they are doing.
Gambling in Islam
Gambling is forbidden in the final Holy Book AL QUR'AN :
In the Name of GOD, the most Compassionate, the most Merciful
"O you who believe! Intoxicants (all kinds of alcoholic drinks), gambling, al-Ansab [sacrifices for idols, etc.] and al-Azlam [arrows for seeking luck or decision] are an abomination of Shaytan’s (Satan) handiwork. So avoid (strictly all) that (abomination) in order that you may be successful. Shaytan wants only to excite enmity and hatred between you with intoxicants (alcoholic drink) and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of GOD (Allah) and from al-Salah (the prayer). So, will you not then abstain?”
[Qur'an: Chapter 5-Verses 90-91]
Gambling in The Bible
(1) Gambling directly appeals to covetousness and greed “which is idolatry” according to the Apostle Paul (Colossians 3:5). Gambling breaches the 1st, 2nd, 8th and 10th commandments. It enthrones personal desires in place of God. Jesus warned: “you cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24).
In 1 Timothy 6:10, which states, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."
(1 Corinthians 6:9, 10; Ephesians 5:3, 5) Gamblers hope to gain money through the losses of others, but the Bible condemns coveting other people's possessions. —Exodus 20:17; Romans 7:7; 13:9, 10. Gambling, even for small amounts, can arouse a destructive love of money. —1 Timothy 6:9, 10.
Dr Majid Katme
Retired Medical Doctor
Former President of Islamic Medical Association in UK
TV/RADIO broadcaster
Competing interests: No competing interests