USE OF NATURAL REMEDIES
God’s Messenger said: “For every malady Allah created, He also created a cure.” (Narrated by al-Bukhāri) Whatever remedies God’s Messenger used for his own needs, he recommended the same for whosoever suffered similar symptoms among his family members and companions. Natural medicines used by God’s Messenger and by his family and companions were simple and non-artificial remedies. Neither he nor any of his companions ever used any pharmaceutical (aqrabãthïn) or composite medicaments. Most of their remedies were primary or simple and not compound. Though occasionally they may have used an additive nutrient to bring out pungency of a remedy, or a secondary herb to weaken the potency of a drug or to make it more malleable. Whenever food provided a simple answer, they subscribed to it. Such was the medicine of most Arabs, Turks, and desert bedouins.
God’s Messenger & said: “The stomach is the house of every disease, and abstinence is the head of every remedy, so make this your custom.” (Narrated by Bukhari) Someone asked the physician of the Arabs, al-Harith bin Kaladah (ca. 634): “What is the epitome of medicine?” He replied: “The imposition of abstinence from food.” Such abstinence from food will cause the disease tostand still and allow the body to expel it. Most physicians agree that eating the right nutritional meal is the best medicine for a healthy body. Physicians also agree that whenever a simple remedy can bring about recovery, compound drugs should be disregarded. Thus, when a malady can be treated with the proper meal or by diet or fasting, one should pursue that avenue instead of using drugs. A wise physician (hakim) should not be obsessed with giving compound drugs for every sickness, for this may create dependency. In fact, when an excess of a drug in the body cannot find a stimulant to interact with or to dissolve in, or if it becomes insoluble or cannot be flushed out of the body, it evolves into a toxin that will control the body and create dependency and further nutritional disorders. This principle applies for any nutritional excess.
Experienced physicians mostly treat simple diseases with simple remedies, and complex symptoms with compounded drugs. People who eat simple food rarely fall sick, and when they do, their remedy is simple, while city people who are accustomed to mixing food or eating elaborately prepared meals, when they fall sick, mostly need compounded drugs. It is reported by al-Bukhāri and Muslim that God’s Messenger never ate two types of food during the same meal. To promote a healthy diet and moderation, he taught that one should accustom himself to eating moderately by apportioning to his stomach one third food, one third water, and one third air. He mostly waited at least half an hour before drinking water after a meal.
Most drugs can be found in nature, and much of the knowledge of herbal medicine was acquired through experiment. This is known as empirical medicine. Some practitioners of herbal medicine also attribute much of their knowledge to observing wild life interacting with nature. They observed that animals use medicines by instinct. When struck by hunger, they seek food, and when thirsty, they seek water. For example, when cats happen to mistakenly eat a poisonous plant, which is not their common food, they seek any plant that yields edible oil and indulge in it to extract its oil until they nauseate and promote vomiting to nullify the toxic effects. Herbalists also observed that when serpents emerge from underground with poor vision, they seek the fennel plant and rub their eyes with its leaves. Hence, herbalists sometimes also have recommended the use of fennel for cases of weak sight. Similarly if the young of a swallow becomes blind, the mother bird will bring it a plant called swallowwort, and will seek it even from as far as China. Again, when seabirds are constipated, they givethemselves an enema of seawater, beside other examples described in medical studies.
However, comparing the extent of scientific knowledge to the divine revelations (wahi) the Almighty Allah inspired to His Messenger concerning what benefits him, or what may harm him, is like comparing the extent of the total of scientific discoveries to date to the infinite knowledge contained in the universes. In fact, the knowledge God’s prophets, upon all of whom be peace, possessed and sometime imparted to their followers, cannot be fully fathomed or measured even by the most ingenious of physicians and scientists together with their most sophisticated instruments today.
Such mysterious knowledge pertaining to the hearts and their spiritual strength; their acceptance of the real medicine of their Lord; their reliance upon their sole Sustainer and Cherisher; their total dependence on His provision; their discarding of ulterior points of convergence; their willingness to break their attachments to the world and to humbly submit to the divine healing powers of their Creator and the Controller of every cause and effect; besides their charity, prayer, repentance, asking for forgiveness, good nature towards others, and helping the needy among other medicines all these have been tried by many nations, regardless of their faith or religion, and they all have discovered unexplainable benefits that can only be attributed to Him, the Creator and Originator of everything. Thus, the minds of physicians, whether they are believers or atheists, have consented to the proof provided through their patients, as noted in their case history books, and who sometimes attributed the divine miracles to inexplicable phenomena. Such is the divine power of our Creator, and such is the proof that only He has control over everything, and only He has the power to cause illness and to bring about a cure. –
Even today, a trained medical doctor may feel illiterate, and in comparison with the power of the Divine Healer, upon Whom the creation depends for its existence, such physician becomes like the village old woman who may prescribe chicken soup for a case of fever. Thus, in comparison, such observations also may make the medical healing arts and physical medicine appear like superstition, though their roots are still connected to the laws of divine wisdom and God’s infinite knowledge concerning cause and effect. Hence, physical medicine is not foreign to the divinely revealed medicine. However, once the human heart is connected with its Creator, Cherisher and the Controller of everything, itcan receive effective remedies which are different from the so- called common ones. The human heart will also recognize that when the spirit (rüh) is strong, it becomes a powerful engine that will strengthen the heart, the brain and the body’s natural defenses, and together they can expel and conquer disease, for they all are God’s servants, and He alone do they worship and obey.
Thus, how can anyone doubt another who has acquired renewed physical and spiritual strength from his nearness to his Lord, and whose heart is revitalized through his love, peace and comfort in the nearness of its Originator, and whose aspirations and yearning to meet his Lord grow steadily, and who places his entire trust in Him and relies exclusively upon His guidance and inspiration- how can anyone doubt that such a devoted worshipper has indeed received the divine benevolence which is the best of remedies for all illnesses? Such divinely inspired strength will provide its recipient with resoluteness, forbearance, and patience to overcome adversity to sustain extreme pain and suffering, and, eventually, to expel them from his body. Only an ignorant person and the most distant from his Lord, the most ignorant about the divine purpose behind the truth of humanity, the one bearing the mightiest of veils of separation from his Lord, and the one whose spirit is dense will deny such attainments.
In this work, God willing, we shall also mention the benefits contained in reciting verses from the divine revelations (Qur’an) and their spiritual powers in neutralizing even the lethal venom of a snakebite. Thus, there are two types of medicines, physical and spiritual, described by God’s Messenger, and we are narrating them in this book, and, by God’s leave, to the best of our ability, we shall describe and explain them according to our limited level of knowledge, by drawing on His bounty, mercy and help to add to our testimony of His Greatness, Glory, and Oneness. He sends down the angels with the Spirit to those of His servants as He pleases, (bidding them to proclaim): Warn (people) that there is no god but I: so fear Me. (Qur’an 16:2) All praises are due to Allah, Lord and Cherisher of the universes.
Aal-e-Qutub Aal-e-Syed Abdullah Shah Ghazi 