A question of Muslim doctrine:

[Theophylact]

From a story in today's New York Times (FRYYY):

The cleric fingered a pack of Winston cigarettes on the dashboard, but declined to smoke one when offered.

He wasn't sure if smoking American cigarettes was against Islam, he said, pulling a pack of Iraqi cigarettes from inside his black, hand-stitched cloak.

Can this possibly be an issue? I assumed that as long as there's no alcohol or pork in the cigarettes, they'd be okay.

[Skywalker[TSG]]

It has nothing to do with islam , The arabs smoke like crazy.

But if you want to support muslim tobacco industries iguess smoking Iraqi or any other arab ciggarete makes sense.

Much like those americans that have stopped using french stuff.

[daveleau]

I can only guess, but it might have something to do with the contents of the cigarette or the "support" he would be giving to an American cigarette company by partaking of their product. As for the former, I would liken that to a Jewish man not eating something if he suspected it had pork in it. Maybe there are items the Muslims are barred from ingesting. Again, this is only a guess...