O heart! You and your suffering for Him exist; ah, how nice it is always to be concerned with Him and suffering for Him! That suffering is, in fact, your cure.
O you who are seeking the world; you are like a day laborer in this world;
and you, lover of Paradise, are also far distant from truth.
O you, who are unaware of the truth and pleased with the two worlds,
You are excused, for you have not felt
the pleasure of suffering for the Beloved’s sake. (Rumi)

How does suffering become a cure or a pleasure? Just like hot peppers do. Why do we consume hot peppers, even though they are painful to eat? In his article, Ali Fethi Toprak explains that experts think hot peppers “are good for our health by lowering blood pressure, having antimicrobial effects, and increasing salivation thus making a boring diet fun.” Kocabas also suggests that, according to some studies, the capsaicin present in hot peppers could be used as a pain suppressor.

Also in this issue, Katharine Branning explains that researchers have discovered a link between the heavy consumption of isot pepper and the very low cancer rates in southeast Turkey. The “research has provided conclusive evidence that isot pepper does indeed possess substantial anti-cancer properties.” In Branning’s piece, the very hot isot pepper does not only help cure cancer, but is also an emblem of dialogue, friendship, and mercy, stretching across cultures and religions.

In her heartbreaking memoir, Magdalena Rusanova tells us about her father, who she lost when she was a child. As we read along, we trace each and every threshold she needed to surpass in her life as she grew into adolescence, developed relationships with others, and faced important choices. Even though her father’s memory faded as the years passed, and despite her pain, there was one significant piece of advice he had given her, which happened to guide her all her life. Choosing the right guide is necessary for an unwavering walk in our lives, as Niyazi-i Misri says,

Let not any guide lead you, for he may make it
too difficult to proceed;
It is very easy for one whose guide is perfect
to advance along this path.
The right guide can even help us discover the pleasure in pain.

We introduce a new dimension to psycho-pathology’s one-dimensional and nonreligious approach to spiritual disorders. Along with chemotherapy, religious strength or spirituality, a lack of which is the real cause of depression, will serve as a radical solution. In short, we propose the cooperation of psychiatry and religion.

The Two Fundamental Causes of Suicide

Preparatory Causes: The most important preparatory cause is religious debility, for religion (especially Islam) protects one from depression and thus from suicide.(1) One who cannot comprehend creation’s purpose and does not fear or love God is prone to depression and so experiences trouble and discomfort. But one whose heart is content with remembering God and who always feels His presence, as He is closer than his or her carotid artery, cannot become depressed.(2) True believers cannot follow a path that might imply rebellion against God; rather, they thank God and rely on Him during abundance and poverty.(3)

Humanity was created for a reason. This worldly life is ephemeral and a test to differentiate the good from the evil. Believers endure and continue to struggle. Besides, humanity is created with these feelings.(4) Those who read and understand the Qur’an properly will overcome their depression.(5)

The carnal self (nafs) urges evil, unless God has mercy on that person.(6) Thus a self that is not controlled by religious training stimulates evil (including suicide) and rebellion against God. Suicide is the result of the self working with Satan to urge the subconscious toward evil. Those who fear God and train their self can avoid this trap.(7) Perhaps Freud meant carnal (nafs-related) desires and feelings when he stated that the subconscious is full of evil desires (pan-sexuality). Perhaps what he called the œid was actually a perception of the carnal self. Perhaps his distance from any religion, especially Islam, caused him to characterize it incorrectly.(8)

Stimulating Causes: Weak faith, the primary cause, leads to depression and desperation. Islam prevents this and thus deters suicide.(9) Poverty and forlornness are the most important stimulating (secondary) causes. Even the Prophet sought refuge in God from poverty.(10) Materialists who cannot reach their financial or materialistic goals are likely to become depressed and commit suicide.

Although suicide has many causes, I consider economic causes paramount. Moreover fractiousness, the primary cause of divorce, is economic helplessness. But although suicide is inconsistent with human dignity and thus rebellion against God, its rates continue to increase.

People commit suicide for various reasons. Table 1 and Figure 1 show that suicide rates are highest in communist or former communist societies. This is due to the lack of spiritual and religious training and a long-standing policy of inculcating atheism and anti-religious sentiment.

For underdeveloped and developing countries, the reason is not primarily poverty. But for prosperous countries, which offer many opportunities to their people, the reason is the perceived spiritual and moral hollowness in the eyes of those searching for spiritual satisfaction. Thus they are more inclined to commit suicide. The highly prosperous countries of North America, Australia, Norway, and Sweden have the highest suicide rates; Muslim countries have the lowest rates, thanks to Islam. In Muslim countries, the primary reason is economic in nature.

Conclusion and Solution Suggestions

More psychiatric clinics or antidepressant drugs are not solutions. Drug therapy might provide a temporary symptomatic relief, but not a radical cure. Given this, religious and moral education should come first when developing a cure. This can be realized with religious education in the triad of family, house of worship, and school.

Believers will not know fear or sadness or be unfortunate.(11) Seekers of salvation elsewhere than in God’s mercy, however, eventually become depressed due to fear or melancholy, the primary causes of suicide and depression in general.

Depressed people should be urged to transcend aimless rehabilitation activities and engage in those with a spiritual or religious meaning. Prayer is the most important activity, for it protects people from evil.(12) As depression and suicide are spiritual sicknesses, prayer could cure them. People experiencing spiritual and psychological distress often display a lack of willpower and concentration. Prayer is the perfect medicine for such ailments.

In addition, the deep and humble reverence forming the goal of each prayer represents the summit of meditation and reflection. Qur’an 23:1 says that such prayers saves people. Those who pray also gain spiritually and economically: Thousands of stressed-out people flow into meditation centers, but prayer will discharge them with no cost and will gain God’s consent.

In conclusion, religion is as a shield that prevents evil, including suicide. Given this, psychiatry and religion must cooperate. In either diagnosis or therapy, success lies in such a cooperation.

Footnotes

1. Islam literally means peace, bliss, security, and soundness, and is the religion with which God is content. See Qur’an 3:19, 20, 83, 85, 102; 4:115; 5:3.
2. Qur’an 2:165, 5:100, 13:28, 39:22, 43:36, 50:16, 57:4, 103:1-4; Ramooz al-Ahadith, 2:369 and 1:46.
3. Qur’an 4:29-31; Tacreed Translation, 12:1940, 1989; 9:1413.
4. Qur’an 3:14; 4:77; 6:32; 9:38; 10:4; 16:41; 18:46; 21:36; 23:115; 29:2-4, 45; 42:36; 45:21; 67:2; 68:5-6; 75:36; 76:2; 90:4; 91:7-10.
5. Qur’an 2:155, 177; 3:134; 13:24; 16:126; 28:54, 42:43; 51:56; 68:35.
6. Qur’an 12:53
7. Qur’an 2:168, 4:29-30, 6:151, 12:53, 39:53, 43:36, 79:40, 91:7-10; Ramooz al-Ahadith 2:369.
8. The Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines œid as œone of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that is completely unconscious and is the source of psychic energy derived from instinctual needs and drives
9. Qur’an 12:87, 39:53; Ramooz al-Ahadith, 1:46.
10. Fath al-Kabir, 1:1285-89.
11. Qur’an 2:38, 274; 6:48; 7:35; 20:123; 46:13.
12. Qur’an 29:45.

Time continues its relentless movement forward at an ever-faster pace. Despite of all the technological advancements and other labor-saving devices that are aimed at making our lives simpler and carefree, we still feel the burden of keeping up-to-date with developments and becoming more productive by using our time wisely. As every day brings more information, it becomes difficult to determine what should have priority and what can be postponed or ignored.

The Fountain seeks to help you with this hard task. Although it is not possible to freeze time, we can lessen its impact by providing you with information designed to help you expand your worldview, to re-interpret spiritual and scientific information so that it becomes personal knowledge. We believe that this knowledge will awaken a desire in your mind and heart, which will transform it into wisdom.

In this issue, we present an article on the relation between healing and faith. At the end of the millennium, many scientists began to move away from the traditional mechanical methods of the universe. Ordinary Americans and people across the world are increasingly exhibiting a strong interest in alternative medicines, such as acupuncture, meditation, herbal foods supplements and drinks, and a wish to find some way around chemical-based medicines that cure only one problem only by causing a host of unwelcomed side-effects. The health industry has been conducting research of their own to see if their proponents’ claims have any basis in truth. Also, scientists are more willing to study possible relationships between mind and matter, breaking a long-standing taboo. Psychologists have conducted experiments and research to see if a person’s faith and outlook on life can influence his or her recovery. We consider this a positive trend, for each individual has both spiritual and physical dimensions. Focusing on just one dimension to the total exclusion of the other cannot cure the individual completely. This new holistic approach to solving people’s problems and illnesses should open an entire new branch for medicine.

Another article focuses on humanity’s progress to happiness and decline to misery. Human beings have a special rank in the universe, for they are the only members of creations who can change the face of the world. Using their God-given comprehensive abilities to drive themselves forward, only human beings can change themselves by submitting themselves to God and living as He wants us to live. Thousands of civilizations, both past and present, show us how these abilities can be seeds for peace, understanding, and positive progress, as well as seeds for destruction and desolation. This article sheds light on these issues from a spiritual perspective.

As readers of The Fountain, your expectations are very important to us. Publishing The Fountain is an interactive process-you contribute articles, comments, and support, and we spread your views to a much larger audience than they would otherwise reach. Such an interactive relationship has mutual benefits, and has potential far-reaching results. Any act that has wide support and appeal result in cultural variation and richness, and broadens people’s thoughts, ideas, and intellect. The Fountain is dedicated to playing such a role, and seeks your continued support in this worthwhile effort. Therefore, rest assured that your feedback and articles will find a receptive audience among our staff members.

The Fountain staff is eagerly looking forward to receiving your submissions for our writing competition! We hope that our young scholars will also grab this opportunity to share their knowledge, experience, and outlook on life with people who seek to understand and make sense of the events happening around them, and the ideas and beliefs that give rise to them. Your participation will help us provide answers to those who have these questions.

Enjoy your magazine!

At reception, he was met by the doctor who introduced him to a nurse who accompanied him to the ward and indicated his bed. He felt he was being processed-routine procedures, no doubt. He noted his surroundings with the nervousness of someone about to undergo his first operation. There was a plain white smock for him to put on. He undressed completely behind curtains which enclosed the bed and put on the smock. The transition from the many bits of his normal clothing to the single, bare hospital smock put him in mind of a corpse being dressed in a shroud. The nearness of the afterlife came home to him sharply, and he thought: ‘There is too much of show and display in our lives. It makes us heedless of death and the hereafter.’

The anaesthetist and the nurses who wheeled him on a stretcher-bed to the operating theatre seemed hardly to be aware of him. They talked mostly to each other, and religion was no part of their conversation. They did their work routinely. He could not feel any friend- liness or warmth towards them. Clinical sterility and all the hardware of modem medicine around him reminded him of darkness rather than light, of cold and not warmth, of pessimism and not hope, of death rather than life. He felt himself a stranger in this world, an alien, as he sometimes did also among people on the street, in the bus, at the market.

The anaesthetic when administered was most effective; he must have passed out after only a few seconds…

He woke to find himself in the ward again, and in pain as if oppressed by a heavy burden. It must be all over, he thought, somewhat amazed. Whatever needed cutting out must have been cut out. He felt as if he had been given a new life. As he was coming to, he heard other patients complaining of their pain: ‘0 God, I cannot bear it. 0 Lord, help me!’ Why must it be so? Why do we not grasp our neediness, our weakness, before God, until our suffering is extreme? To knock so urgently at the door of His mercy when we experience hardship, while we fail to thank Him in prosperity, is something peculiar to man.

He had been freed from a bodily illness. The skill of the surgeon had cut out the local cause of his pain. Good. Now, if only there were illustrious doctors who could cure the wounds, the pain and sufferings, of his spirit, who could cut out the tumours of his sins!

After being discharged from hospital he returned home where he lived alone for some time. He received news of the death of his grandmother. He wouldn’t be able to see her again and kiss her hands as he used to do on festival days, nor hear her recite, in her supplication to God after the dawn prayer, the names of all her relatives, one by one, praying with sincere tears for the well-being of each of them.

One by one all his loved ones would be separated from him. That was certain, living in solitude was good and proper. It helped him to feel the closeness of the real Friend. Family and friends and colleagues could be a comfort at times, but they also inculcated routine and habit. For this reason, perhaps, serious-minded people have always felt a need to go into retreat for a short period. A famous man who suffered greatly in this age used to be fearful of what was familiar and altered by human handiwork and familiar with what had remained unaltered, wild: therefore, he used to go into mountains and stay in the company of his Compassionate Lord who knew the innermost secrets of his heart.

His lifetime and the lifetime of his loved ones were short. Either he would leave them or they would leave him: separation was certain. He had noticed in the mirror that white hairs were beginning to appear on his head. Old age and death… Despite the white hairs, he felt himself a child, not even an adolescent. To experience the reality of old age and death is something quite different from what is presented on the subject in books and movies. Certain realities can only be understood with the passage of time and by directly experiencing them; they cannot be understood through words or images about them, however eloquent or moving.

He drifted on waves of intense emotion, at times supposing he was very far away from Him, at other times feeling that He was very near. New windows were opening in his mind for why he believed what he believed, why he had said what he had said, why he had lived through what he had lived through. He saw these words in a light-filled book: ‘We shall seek to sell our selves and our goods (which were only ever on loan to us) to God, in exchange for Paradise, the realm of eternal bliss, and for His pleasure which is a goal whose value no mind can measure’. Is it such a heavy bargain that most people do not sell? No, indeed it is not. For the circle of the permitted things is broad enough to know many pleasures and find ease and contentment in this life. There is no need at all to venture into the circle of the unlawful. The obligatory duties are neither many nor burdensome. To be a slave and soldier of God is a rank of such honour, the delight in it can scarcely be expressed in words. And our duty is to act for the sake of God, and to give and take for His sake, and to move within the circle of His permission and law, so that we may attain peace.

Peace of mind, soul and heart… The peace felt in the bones through the sheer ease of observing the bounds, of not transgressing. Who knows how many people are seeking this peace? How many are fed up with the unlawful ways, who long to rise up against their sins, but plunge back into them after finding no support and becoming depressed…

Looking through a photograph album, he slipped into old memories. The adventure of his life was covered with the leaves of years. Regret at not maintaining the innocence he had been born with increased as he turned the pages. How should so many sins be cleansed, so many spiritual wounds be healed?

Whenever he felt helpless he would turn to his book of supplications and recite from it. He did so now. After a few sentences he was overcome with weeping. He had thought after the operation: ‘If only there were an illustrious doctor certificated by the Healer who could cure the illness and sufferings of my spirit.’ Now, it was as if that doctor were standing but a few steps ahead of him: ‘O my Lord! Peace and blessings from You upon our master Muhammad, the chosen one! In his example is the healing and remedy of hearts, the wholeness and cure of bodies, the light and brightness of eyes.’

The disease affects otherwise healthy individuals, usually young adults, with multiple lesions of the central nervous system. These lesions result in problems with co-ordination, slurred speech (dysarthria), numbness, paralysis, urinary incontinence and blindness. Sufferers often do not know which part of the body it will attack next.

Although humankind have made great advances in many areas, they have made little progress in understanding the brain and its operations. The starting point for understanding multiple sclerosis or any other neurological illness is an examination of the smallest unit of the brain, namely the nerve cell or neuron. The neuron is made up of a cell body (called a soma) and one or more long processes – a single axon and dendrites. The structure resembles tree trunks growing from a frizzle of roots (see diagram).

The roots, called dendrites, serve mainly to receive incoming messages from other neurons. The trunks, known as axons, transmit the messages and are covered with fatty insulating sheaths. These myelin sheaths are the focus of research into MS. The myelin contains a protein referred to as myelin base protein (MBP). Deterioration of this myelin sheath, particularly the MBP, is characteristic of multiple sclerosis. The myelin ensures that the electro-chemical charges communicated by the neurons are transmitted efficiently. If the sheath is damaged, signals ‘leak out’ causing the slurred speech, numbness, etc., associated with MS.

There are several approaches to dealing with MS. We can try to understand why the sheath becomes damaged in order to work out how to repair it. We can experiment with animals (typically rats), in whom MS-like symptoms have been induced, and search for a vaccine. Also, we can look to the body’s own healing system and try to understand why (for example) children do not normally get MS and whether the body can reverse the process ‘naturally’.

Whatever approach we take, we will never find a permanent cure unless we understand the complexities of the brain. So far, we have come nowhere near even a partial understanding of this marvel of creation. Fortunately, understanding all of creation is not a pre-requisite of searching for a cure.

One approach, as we noted, concentrates on finding ways of repairing the myelin sheath. This idea would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. However, in 1993, Charles French-Constant, at the Centre for Brain Research, identified re-myelination, that is, a reversal of the process, in newly formed lesions of sufferers experiencing the early stages of the disease. It appears that the body tries to regenerate itself but, with most MS sufferers, it is unable to do so fully. The basis of French-Constant’s research is that this regeneration might be enhanced if a chemical trigger could he found to improve the limited capacity for healing. His work starts by looking at the natural healing processes. Repairing even only 5% of the damaged nerve fibres would bring considerable relief to a large percentage of MS sufferers. For example, it could eliminate most bladder malfunctions related to MS. In effect, the disease would appear to he ‘contained’.

Humans are born with all the brain and nerve cells they are likely to need during their lifetimes. Throughout the life of living organisms, nerve cells die. If the cells which lead to the sheathing of the nerve cells could be found in an inactivated state in MS sufferers, and then encouraged to migrate, proliferate and repair the damage caused by the degeneration of the myelin, the processes of remyelination could be encouraged. The body would heal itself.

Research to identify the origin of the cells which end up insulating the axons began in the l98Os on rats. This work with rats suggests that these cells may still be present in fully developed adults, However, optimism must be cautious. As with other experiments, early results with cats have shown that scaling-up results is not always straightforward.

Even if the right cells can be found in the body, creating the correct chemical environment for regeneration is still going to be difficult. Another problem is that even if remyelination can be encouraged, this does not necessarily mean that de-myelination has been halted. The disease has to he attacked from both directions.

The new ‘vaccine’ about to be tried in America was developed by David Topham of St Jude’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Instead of trying to support the regeneration of the myelin, he attempts to stop the process that attacks the myelin sheath.

The body’s immune system, primarily in the form of T cells, naturally attacks antigens from viruses and bacteria which are seen as foreign organisms. In multiple sclerosis, the protein of the myelin sheath (MBP) is mistakenly attacked in the same way as an antigen might be.

In the early l980s, researchers found that they could reduce the number of cells which attack the myelin in a MS type illness in rats by inoculating them with inactivated T cells. In 1993, Jingwa Zhang managed to demonstrate a similar pattern in six humans using their own weakened auto- reactive T cells (Science, 261, p.145l). This was based on ‘naturally occurring cells’.

Bill Blackmore, at the Cambridge Centre for Brain Research, has been attempting to culture cells from donors. Others at the Centre have taken cells from patients in the early stages of re-myelination, cultured them in a laboratory and, after a severe attack, reintroduced them along with the necessary growth factor into the damaged area. This has the advantage that rejection is less likely.

A more controversial approach uses post-natal tissue. Cultured fetal tissue has been used in Sweden and America in an attempt to treat Parkinson’s disease. But this procedure raises a number of serious ethical questions.

Any significant breakthrough in the treatment of MS is likely to have implications for the treatment of arthritis. This is what is hoped for with the latest attempt to find a cure. Earlier this year, 300 Americans suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis were treated with a drug which aimed to ‘re-educate’ the T cells. It was hoped that this would result in them protecting the relevant cells rather than destroying them. The manufacturers claimed that four people were completely cured of the illness. The results were encouraging. A peptide produced by Topham, the developer of the latest vaccine, has already been used on joint tissue by other research groups.

These attempts to ‘cure’ MS may produce results, but all the researchers will admit that the central problem is lack of knowledge about how the brain operates. Much of the nervous system is still a complete mystery. The search for a cure will continue to go on. There is a cure and we have to search for it, for we have been assured that ‘for every illness there is a cure’.

I once asked an Austrian friend of mine who had just qualified as a doctor where he went when he was sick. The surprising answer was that he and most of his colleagues went to a homeopath. He reminded me of our family G. P. who didn’t believe in medicines. I was told ‘just take your son home and make sure he eats well’.

My friend’s preferring a homeopath to one of his fellow professionals, was as I later found out, a rejection of what he had learned during his many years of study. He felt that he had been taught a set of beliefs, which, in his words, ‘did more harm than good’. He believed that he had been trained to ‘manage symptoms using chemicals’ and that his profession had nothing to do with looking for cures or curing people. He told me that he felt dirty when he had finished his shift and that he wasn’t being ‘true to himself’.

My friend may be an exception and is probably frowned upon and dismissed as a crank by other doctors, but, his views raise many interesting issues relevant to professionals and non-professionals alike.

There is an increasing interest in alternative approaches to health. The rise in health shops and alternative clinics show that the world of commerce is cashing in on this fact. Most bookshops stock books on acupuncture, homeopathy and other forms of Eastern medicines. However, the West’s search for an alternative has overlooked the medicine of the Muslim world, sometimes referred to as al Tibb al Nabawi, the medicine of the Prophet or Islamic medicine.

At Tibb al Nabawi

The name al Tibb at Nabawi literally means prophetic medicine. It is based upon the sayings of Muhammad, upon him be peace. However, it encompasses much more than the relatively small number of prophetic sayings. It incorporated Greek and Indian philosophy and practice wherever they were found to be in accordance with the general principles of Islam. The sayings of the Prophet set down general guidelines and principles which later led to the great discoveries and observations of the likes of Ibn Sina and other Muslim thinkers.

This series of articles will be an introduction to some of these principles.

Illness

The word illness, mard, is used in the Qur’an in two different ways. ‘It is no fault in the blind nor in one born lame, nor in one afflicted with illness (mard)’ (Al-Nur, 24.61). This example and the verses like it give special licenses to one who is sick. These licenses include delaying the compulsory fast and not having to fight during wartime. Verses such as ‘and any of you who is ill or has an ailment in his scalp should in compensation either fast or feed the poor’ (Al-Baqara, 2.196) which refer to the sick pilgrim not having to shave or cut his or her hair, led Muslim scholars to attempt to find a legal definition of the word mard illness.

The jurists set out the basis for practical diagnosis. They identified the means by which one could judge illness which included irregularities in the blood, urine, stool, and semen; imbalance in patterns of sleep, eating and drinking and the appearance of wind, sneezing and vomit.

Illness was defined as being ‘out of balance’. This encompassed both physical and mental states. The mental or emotional state is the second usage of the word mard in the Qur’an. ‘In their hearts is a disease (maid)’ (Al-Baqara, 2.15) The heart (qalb), here, refers to ‘the seat of the emotions’, Physically, one is considered to have an illness if one is ‘out of balance’. Likewise, one is emotionally sick if one is out of the natural and pure state that we were created in.

Doctors are needed for some of these emotional and physical illnesses; for others they are not. Tiredness is a symptom of being ‘out of balance’ which can be rectified simply by sleeping.

Islam sees the ultimate curer of these states to be the One who created them. He sent doctors to His creation such as Jesus who cured the leper as well as those suffering from pride and inflated egos. The last of these great doctors was Muhammad, upon him be peace, who, through his advice and practice, set out principles for curing both types of illness.

The state of balance

Common to many systems of alternative medicines is the concept of ‘balance/imbalance’. One’s natural healthy state is a balance between the four qualities of dryness/wetness and hot/cold. The reason a person may have left this state can be either ‘material’ or ‘consequential’. Material sickness is where a substance has entered the body and has caused its balance to shift in one of the several directions. Once the substance is gone the body will return to its natural mizaj, the model of balance.

A ‘consequential’ illness is where the effect of a substance in the body remains after it has left the body. The body is left with an excess of heat/cold or dryness/moisture.

Prophetic medicines sees illness as being caused by either this state of imbalance or damage to an organ or to the natural weakening caused by old age. The doctor’s first job is to discover the cause of illness, consider its cause, think what might encourage it to return it to its correct state act upon that and then depend on the Creator.

SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES

Preparation of medicines

Most medicines in al Tibb al Nabawi are based on the dietary advice of the Messenger, upon him be peace. A simple illness requires a simple medicine. The cure for imbalance leaning towards heat would be something cold. The classic example is the fever. The Prophet said ‘fever is from the hell, put it out with water.’ (Bukhari and Muslim)

A complex illness e.g. one leaning to hot-dry would require a complex mixture, in our example a cold-dry cure.

Every illness has a cure

The Prophet, upon him be peace, said ‘for every illness there is cure. If the cure matches the illness, improvement will take place by the permission of God.’ (related by Jabir in Muslim) and ‘God did not send down an illness except that He sent down a cure (Bukhari).

The above sayings establish there important principles. Firstly, they encourage the administration of medicines. There is agreement among the majority of Muslim scholars that it is a must. Secondly, they imply that, if administering medicine is a compulsion, then searching for a cure must also be a compulsion. Finally, they emphasise the dependence on God. In this modern age of ours we tend to depend on the medicines and not on the True Curer. It is interesting to look at how few remember God in illness until they realise their illness is terminal and that there is no hope for a cure. My own experience is that it is extremely upsetting and often devastating for both patient and doctor when the limitations of modern medicine dawns on them.

Cure may include spiritual as well as physical medicine

Muhammad, upon him be peace, described specific cures which included the likes of honey for the chest and liver. He also described procedures and principles, e.g. ‘emptying the stomach and putting out the fever with water’. In addition, he prescribed prayers and supplications for things like headaches and general sickness. These can be found in the books of hadith, traditions, as well as in the various books of prayers of the Prophet.’

Diet is the key to good health

Himya meaning both precaution and diet. Himya, with both of these meanings is the central pillar of Islamic medicine. The principle is found in the Qur’an which permits the use of sand in place of water in ablution and washing, if the latter is found to be detrimental to health. There was an occasion when the Prophet came with his cousin, Ali, to the house of Um al Mandari bint Qays al Ansari. They began to eat when Muhammad, upon him be peace, stopped and said to Ali ‘you are recovering.’ He took some barley and chard and gave it to him saying ‘this is better for you (related by Ibn Majah)’ The incident is an explanation of the principle of himya in its fullest sense.

Harith, described as the doctor of the Arabs, said ‘himya is the source of every cure, the stomach is the home of every illness.’ The Messenger said: ‘The stomach is the well of the body and the veins drink from it. If it is healthy, the veins pass on good health, if it is sick the veins pass on poison’.

Dietary precaution himya, can be used in three stages.

1. As a cure

2. To keep the body healthy.

3. To aid recovery

Based on the model of Ibn al Qayyim, hakims and traditional doctors have developed a sophisticated system of dietary medicine.

General behaviour and basic hygiene

The Messenger came to perfect behaviour. He taught not only us what foods we should eat hut how they should be prepared. Things like covering food, washing hands before eating and boiling food thoroughly when cooking were all stressed by the Prophet. The same is true of the etiquette of eating. The Messenger taught us to sit in such a manner that our stomach can be filled only to a third of its capacity.

Dieatry advice

The Messenger, upon him he peace, mentioned over seventy specific foods which he considered healthy. Modern science has confirmed that he was right. Among the foods mentioned were honey, dates, vinegar, fish and ginger.

*This article was based on Al Tibb Al Nabawi which is the final section of the book Zad al Ma’d of Ibn al Qayyim al Jawzi. It will be followed by a series of articles expanding on some of the points mentioned above.

References 

1. AL BUKARI (1980) Jami al Sahih
2. AL HAKIM (1965) Majmu’ Zawaid
3. IBN AL QAYYIM (1987) Al Tibb al Nabawi al Taiba
4. MUSLIM (1965) Jami al Sahih