The main religious leader of Egypt, Sheik Nasir Farid Wasil, has prohibited Egyptian muslims to smoke

According to him the habit of smoking goes against the Muslim laws that say that “no muslim should do evil to himself”. The Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram reported recently that 45 billion cigarettes are consumed in the country every year, a figure that is likely to more than double before the year 2000; daily sale revenues with cigarettes amount to 22 million Egyptian pounds. Eastern Company, the sole manufacturer of cigarettes, produced 25.3 billion units during the first half of 1996 against 22.3 per cent in the same period of 1995.