Surah 16. An-Nahl, Ayah 67

The term sakar (lit., "wine" or, generically, "intoxicants") is contrasted here with rizq hasan ("wholesome sustenance"), thus circumscribing both the positive and the negative properties and effects of alcohol. Although this surah was revealed about ten years before the Qur'anic prohibition of intoxicants in {5:90-91}, there is no doubt that their moral condemnation is already implied in the above verse (Ibn 'Abbas, as quoted by Tabari; also Razi).

 Intoxicants were later prohibited in the Quran in three stages: 2:19, 4:43, and finally 5:90-91.

There are wholesome drinks and foods that can be got out of the date-palm and the vine: e.g., non-alcoholic drinks from the date and the grape, vinegar, date-sugar, grape-sugar, and dates and grapes themselves for eating. If sakar is taken in the sense of fermented wine, it would refer to the time before intoxicants were prohibited, for this is a Makkan Sura and the prohibition came in Madinah. In such a case it would imply a subtle disapproval of the use of intoxicants and mark the first of a series of steps that in time culminated in total prohibition.