Prophetic medicine

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Unani medicine.)[5]

Prophetic medicine is distinct from Islamic medicine, which is a broader category encompassing a variety of medical practices rooted in Greek natural philosophy, (which are distinct from hadith-based Prophetic medicine).[1] This body of knowledge was fully articulated only in the 14th century, at which point it was concerned with reconciling Sunnah (traditions) with the foundations of the Galenic humoral theory that was prevalent at the time in the medical institutions of the Islamicate world.[6] It is nonetheless a tradition with continued modern relevance to this day,[7][8] when it is said to be "gaining popularity as a reflection" of Muslims' love of their Prophet.[9]

Background

It is important to note that medieval interpretations of the hadith were produced in a

Galenic
medical context, while modern-day versions of prophetic medicine treatments may include recent research findings to frame the importance of the genre.

The Abu Dawood hadith,

Make use of medical treatment, for Allah has not made a disease without appointing a remedy for it, with the exception of one disease, namely death.

— 
Sunan Abu Dawood[10]

is thought by some to indicate that Muhammad's belief in the importance of medical research to seek out cures for diseases known to Muslims.[11][12]

Recommendations

In hadith, Muhammad recommended the use of practices such as

hijama (wet cupping) for healing. He generally opposed the use of cauterization for causing "pain and menace to a patient".[11] Other items with beneficial effects attributed to Muhammad, and standard features on traditional medicine in the Islamicate world, include olive oil; dates; miswak as a necessity for oral health and Nigella sativa
or "black seed" or "black cumin" and its oils. These items are still sold in Islamic centers or sellers of other Islamic goods.

Black seeds

Nigella sativa seeds
Main article: Nigella sativa

Abu Hurayra quoted Muhammad saying: "Utilize the black seed for without a doubt, it is a cure for all sicknesses aside from death." (Hadith Al-Bukhari 7:591)[13][14]

Camel urine and milk

Main article:
Camel urine hadith

According to a hadith recorded in the 4th chapter (Wudu') of Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad had used Camel urine to treat people:[15][16]

Some people of` Ukl or `Uraina tribe came to Medina and its climate did not suit them. So the Prophet ordered them to go to the herd of (Milch) camels and to drink their urine and milk. So they went as directed and after they became healthy, they killed the shepherd of the Prophet and drove away all the camels.[17]

The event has also been recorded in Sahih Muslim, History of the Prophets and Kings and Kitāb aṭ-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr.[18][19]

Henna

See also:
Sunan Abu Dawood, Muhammad had advised the application of henna in case of leg pain:[20]

Narrated by Salmah, the maid-servant of the Prophet, said: No one complained to the Prophet of a headache but he told him to get himself cupped, or of a pain in his legs but he told him to dye them with henna.

— Abi Dawud Book 28, Hadith 3849

In Ibn Majah's Sunan ibn Majah, Muhammad has been described as using henna for external injuries:[20]

Salma Umm Rafi’, the freed slave woman of the Prophet, said: “The Prophet did not suffer any injury or thorn- prick but he would apply henna to it”

— Ibn Majah Vol. 4, Book 31, Hadith 3502

Honey

See also: Honey § Religious significance

The value of honey is traced to specific mention of its virtues in the Quran, an-Nahl (the Bees) and not just Muhammad. (Quran 68–69)[21] [non-primary source needed]

Muhammad is quoted as, "Healing is in three things: cupping, a gulp of honey or cauterization, (branding with fire) but I forbid my followers to use cauterization (branding with fire)."[22]

Truffles

Truffles have been cited within multiple hadiths for eye medicine. Muhammad refers to them as 'manna' in many of these hadiths. The word Manna means a form of sustenance granted by a divine source; this is often referred to in the context of the food the Israelites received in the Hebrew Bible.

"Truffles are 'Manna' which Allah, the Exalted the Majestic, sent to the people of Israil, and its juice is a medicine for the eye" [23]

House flies

The Prophet said, "If a house fly falls in the drink of anyone of you, he should dip it (in the drink) and take it out, for one of its wings has a disease and the other has the cure for the disease."

— 
Sahih Bukhari[24]

Some research has endeavored to demonstrate the efficacy of the hadith and that that the right-wing of a fly is not "a vector for the spread of disease".[25][26]

Works

16th century manuscript of Al-Tibb al-Nabawi created for Ottoman emperor Suleiman the Magnificent, bearing his tughra (left)

While the prominent works focused on treatment of the hadith related to health date from several centuries A.H., Sahih al-Bukhari and other earlier collections included these as well. 'Abd Allah b. Bustâm al-Nîsâbûrî's Tlbb al-a'imma, aggregating a legacy of several Shi’ite Imams, is widely considered to be the first known treatise on prophetic medicine, although it is rooted in a somewhat different cosmology.[3] Book 76 of the canonical al-Bukhari corpus is entitled "Medicine" and includes over a 100 traditions, 76 loosely related to medicine, covering topics ranging from precautions against leprosy and epidemics to the forbidding of alcohol and suicide.

Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya in the 13th century produced one of the most influential works about prophetic medicine in his 277-chapter book, Al-Tibb al-Nabawiyy. Al-Jawziyya deals with a diversity of treatments as recommended by Muhammad but also engages with ethical concerns, discussing malpractice and the hallmarks of the competent doctor.[27] Ethics of medical practice continue to be an important marker of Islamic medicine for some.[28] Al-Jawziyya also elaborates on the relationship between medicine and religion.[2]

A theologian renowned for his

strangulation for "heresy", although the court dealing with the case never reached a conclusive statement, and the event was recorded to have been largely influenced by the enemies of Ibn al-Khatib.[29]
[30]

Both of the works above also address bioethical issues of abortion and conception, issues that, like the idea of Islamic medical heritage as being holistic, continue to be important in constructions of modern Islamic identity.[31] Other notable works include those of Ibn Tulun (d. AD 1546) and Al-Dhahabi (d. AD 1348).

Contemporary practice

Islamic Republic of Iran

Some clerics in Iran promote a controversial form of prophetic or "Islamic" medicine, based on sometimes rather unlikely quotations attributed to historic Muslim religious figures, and on Iranian traditional medicine.[32]

Jafar Sobhani, who said that

"insulting medical learning is against the spirit of Islam and Islam’s call for [learning] science... Criticizing the content [of a book] is appropriate, but burning

is an act of ignorance, and many libraries were set on fire based on wrong motivations in the past".

Ayatollah

IRNA news agency reported that Abbas Tabrizian, who has often promoted his remedies as "Islamic medicine" in opposition to standard medicine, has also claimed that COVID-19 is God's revenge against those who had bothered him.[33]

An arrest warrant has been issued for Morteza Kohansal, a follower of Abbas Tabrizian who visited the coronavirus section of a hospital in Iran without wearing protective gear, and applied an unknown substance he described as "Prophet's Perfume" to patients.[34]

Using "Islamic medicine" has caused some Iranian clerics to delay getting standard medical treatment. Ayatollah Hashem Bathaie Golpayegani announced that he had been infected by COVID-19, but had cured himself, three weeks before being hospitalized. He died two days later.[34] Ayatollah Haeri-Shirazi and Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi were both also said by their families to have long delayed seeking standard medical, using "Islamic medicine" instead.[34] Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi, who had been considered a possible successor Supreme Leader of Iran, died of cancer. His son Ala Shahroudi later said that "The so-called Islamic doctors had convinced my father to ignore what modern physicians said about his illness and how to treat it... My father underwent surgery in 2017. Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, secretly visited and advised him to ignore what the Islamic doctors say, and listen to the modern-day physicians... Nevertheless, my father ignored the leader's recommendation, and continued to trust the so-called Islamic Medicine experts."[32]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Islamic Culture and the Medical Arts - Prophetic Medicine". National Library of Medicine. 15 December 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  2. ^ a b Muzaffar Iqbal, Science and Islam (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007),59
  3. ^
    doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.4.0657
    .
  4. ^ Khan, Shaykh Faraz A (14 September 2012). "The Place of Prophetic Medicine in the Sacred Law". IslamQA. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  5. ISBN 0-520-01997-0
    .
  6. doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00810.x
    .
  7. ^ ":: Tibb-e-Nabawi, Healing by ISLAM". Tibbenabawi.org. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
  8. ^ "Lifestyle & Wellbeing According to the Quran & Sunna". Prophetic Medicine. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
  9. ^ Hussein, Asim Abdelmoneim; Ali Albar, Mohamed; Alsanad, Saud Mohamed (August 2019). "Prophetic Medicine, Islamic Medicine, Traditional Arabic and Islamic Medicine (TAIM): Revisiting Concepts and Definitions" (PDF). Acta Scientific Medical Sciences. 3 (8): abstract. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  10. Sunan Abu Dawood, 28:3846
  11. ^ a b Deuraseh Nurdeen. "Ahadith of the Prophet on Healing in Three Things (al-Shifa' fi Thalatha): An Interpretational". Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine. 2003 (4): 14–20.
  12. PMID 12677236
    .
  13. ^ "Book 71: Medicine - Hadith 591 (Volume 7) - Sahih Al-Bukhari - Collection of Actions, Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم) - Kutub as-Sittah".
  14. PMID 24959190
    .
  15. ^ "Abultons (Wudu) What is said about the urine of camels, sheep and other animals and about their folds". Sunnah.com. Archived from the original on 2013-12-13.
  16. ^ Boyer, Lauren (10 June 2015). "Stop Drinking Camel Urine, World Health Organization Says". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
  17. ^ https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5686 [bare URL]
  18. ^ The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences. Jointly published by the Association of Muslim Social Scientists; International Institute of Islamic Thought. 2007.
  19. ^ "Sahih Muslim Book of Oaths, Muharibin, Retaliation, and Blood Money". amrayn.com. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  20. ^ a b "History and health benefits of Henna". IslamicFinder. Retrieved 2021-02-05.
  21. ^ Quran 16:69
  22. ^ Ibn 'Abba, Book 76, Hadith4
  23. ^ Book 36 (Book of Drinks), Hadith 221
  24. ^ Muhammad al-Bukhari. "Sahih Bukhari / Hadith 3320". quranx.com. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  25. PMID 33612611
    .
  26. ^ Soumaya, B. (12 October 2015). "Muhammad's (saaw) Hadith of the Fly is confirmed by Science". Linked In. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  27. ^ a b Cyril Elgood (1962) The Medicine Of the Prophet. PubMed Central, 146-153.
  28. ^ "'Islamic medicine' on the rise in Southeast Asia". The Jakarta Post. 2011-09-26. Archived from the original on 2016-01-30. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
  29. ^ c.f. Ober, William B., and Nabil Alloush, "Plague at Granada, 1348-1349: Ibn al-Khatib and Ideas of Contagion."
  30. ISBN 9780099523277
    .
  31. ^ Fazlur Rahman Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition: Change and Identity. (New York : Crossroad, 1987)
  32. ^ a b "Successor To Khamenei Died Because He Trusted Islamic Medicine, Son Reveals". RFE/RL.
  33. ^ Faghihi, Rohollah (10 March 2020). "A cleric's cure for coronavirus becomes butt of jokes in Iran". Al-Monitor.
  34. ^ a b c "Prophet's perfume and flower oil: how Islamic medicine has made Iran's Covid-19 outbreak worse". The France 24 Observers.

Further reading

  • Ghaly, Mohammed, Prophetic Medicine, in Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God (2 vols.), Edited by C. Fitzpatrick and A. Walker, Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2014, Vol. II, pp. 502–506.
    ISBN 1610691776

External links
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