Nuh

In the name of Allah the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful. Prayers and blessings be upon Prophet Muhammad (SAWS).[1]

Welcome to our program. Today’s episode is the third and the last episode concerning health. Actually the previous episode included many painful truths and problems. We mentioned the gloomy truth about the contagious diseases, as well as how the Arab world contains many dangerous diseases, how the highest rate of obesity blood pressure diseases are in the Arab world, and how contaminated water is spread all over the Arab world from which many villages drink. We discussed many topics with similar meanings, like hypertension, diabetes, obesity and many other problems. We also showed that quality in hospitals needs a quality assurance system to analyze it and improve it. We also talked about medicines and medication in the Arab world.

People contacted us and told us more problems and that they agree with the image we have displayed in the previous episode, and that the main solution is to start planning for the college of pharmacy and the ministries of health, but how? How can we make the PhDs and MAs useful to this reality? How can we raise the scientific level of university students? A great deal has been said and we have high hopes to make it come true. We also have hopes that what we have said in the other episodes will be adopted by the youths, but frankly speaking, the reality is very hard.

Today’s episode is different; today’s episode will be far from discussing devices, hospitals and medication. It will discuss something that if achieved, everything we have talked about - the great shortage in potentials and the many problems we have discussed in the previous episode - will be solved; this concept is called compassion: the doctor’s compassion, and the healthy people’s compassion and kindness towards the ill ones. Compassion and mercy mean giving a beautiful smile, offering good treatment to the patient and being kind. In essence, medicine is a humanitarian task; have you forgotten that fact? Imam al-Shafey has a beautiful saying, he says, “The noblest science after the science of halal and haram (the permitted and prohibited in Islam) is medicine.” When he was asked why, he replied saying, “Because Allah wants to have mercy upon His creatures, the Prophet is a mercy to the world and medicine is part of this mercy to the world, is it not?” Is it not true that medicine in the end is a mercy to people? Thus, consider the Imam’s opinion of medicine.

In this episode, my words will be directed to three groups of people. Firstly, the doctors, secondly, the patients and thirdly, the healthy people, and I will give four pieces of advice for each group. My aim for this episode is to soften the doctor’s heart towards the patient, the healthy people’s hearts towards the patient, and the patient’s heart towards himself, in order to help him find patience. My aim for this episode is that it will spread among people and be recorded on tapes and given to doctors to remind them, to patients to give them patience, and to healthy people to make them think.

Concerning doctors, I would like to tell them that the first thing we ask from you is to be merciful and gentle. I know all about doctors’ circumstances, especially the young ones. I know that the doctor graduates many years after friends of his age in other colleges and that all his friends start their lives and get married and maybe have kids while he is still in the fifth or in the sixth year in med school. Then afterwards, he must prepare more and more studies to become an efficient doctor. I know all about the materialistic life’s pressures on him/her and how he wishes to get married and just live, which is his right. I also know that he himself as a doctor is requested to have a certain appearance and attitude in the community and that all this requires money. I am also aware that he has thousands of colleagues like him and that he is incapable of getting a good education and that there will be thousands of graduates like him, so how will he start his career? How can he be distinguished while years of his life are passing? However, that will not hold me from telling him that there is something that will not cost money, it is tenderness and compassion; it is mercy. I am asking all the fresh medical school graduates to memorize this Hadith al-Qudsi, “On the authority of Abu-Hurairah, who said that the Messenger of Allah said, ‘Allah (TWT)[2] will say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘O son of Adam, I fell ill and you visited Me not.’ He will say, ‘O Lord, and how should I visit You when You are the Lord of the worlds?’ He will say, ‘Did you not know that My servant so-and-so had fallen ill and you visited him not? Did you not know that had you visited him, you would have found Me with him?’” This is my word to all doctors.

I want you to look at our beautiful history, the Islamic history. Can you believe that they used to call doctors ‘The Merciful?’ Omar Ibnul-Khattab (RA) was called the Prince of the Believers, was he not? What about the doctor? He was called ‘Savior of the Believers.’ The doctor was called ‘Merciful Savior of the Believers.’ You know, none of us will be able to take a title on the Day of Judgment or in life, because none of us will be the Prince of the Believers. Omar (RA) was the Prince of the Believers, but how many doctors can get the title of ‘Savior of the Believers?’ Imagine on the Day of Judgment that a voice is heard, “Let the saviors of the believers rise,” so al-Razi, Avicenna, and doctor so and so, who is a man, and doctor so and so, who is a woman, all rise, and I am addressing the female doctors: please do not ever be harsh.

Did you know that due to the importance of the issue of gentleness and mercy, the Muslim scholars have said that it is permissible for the doctor and the nurse not to attend the congregational prayer for the patient’s sake, and that a doctor can even miss the Jumua’a (Friday) prayer for the patient’s sake? When asked whether this only applied in times of surgery, they replied that if the patient complains and is in pain, the doctor’s first priority is to be by his side. However please, I ask the young doctors not to exploit this and search for a patient in order to miss the Jumua’a prayer. The idea is to emphasize that the medical issue is of grave importance from the Muslim scholars’ point of view.

Do you know who first developed the idea of the doctors’ oath upon graduation? This oath originated in the third century A.H. (after Hijra) during the Abbasid era. Let me read the oath for you, and see how merciful and tender those doctors were:

“I swear by Allah, the Lord of life and death, the Giver of health and the Creator of recovery and every cure, and I swear before Allah’s followers of men and women that I will fulfill this oath and put whosoever taught me this craft in the rank of my parents, and those whom they bore as my brethrens, and that I will teach them this craft if they needed me to teach it to them without any price or permission; and to have mercy upon every patient deeply, and to be merciful to the patients’ family and never to be late for him, no matter what, and to be merciful to his family. All the houses which I enter, I enter only for the benefit of the patients - not to oppress or to suppress or to spoil. I will not uncover any of the inconvenient things I see or hear while treating the patients and I will keep them as secrets and never reveal them.”

This was written in the year 300 A.H. How developed were we? Doctors, please have mercy on the patients. This was the first meaning I wished to say. In fact, I am sorry but I want you to regard the West and how they have mercy on the patients, although our religion promoted this first. Look at how they are merciful to patients in one place in the West, in children’s hospitals. When you go there, and I have been there, you find toys all over the child’s room, nurses are not dressed in white but in sports-wear; you find doctors and nurses treating the children in a beautiful way so that the kids learn to love them very much. All doctors and nurses treat the children in the same beautiful way; this is because they take courses in psychological attitudes of how to attract the child’s interest.

Furthermore, consider the Christian missionaries, who are nurses in Africa. A nurse that comes from the Netherlands, Spain, or England, who is very pretty and young, goes to an African desert and carries an African child who might throw up on her or might be injured, yet she hugs and kisses him. Why? Because she has a message. What about our nurses? Do they have no message? What about the message of our men? I want everyone to answer for himself. Where is your message, doctors? Do you know that Isa (AS) (Jesus), the great Messenger of Allah, was a doctor? He used to heal those who were born blind and the lepers by Allah’s will. Do you know why he was called al-Maseeh (The Messiah)? The word comes from the Arabic word for stroking; he used to stroke the patient to heal him, so he was called al-Maseeh. Where has that stroke gone doctors? We wish to see all doctors applying these words. Doctors, where is the beautiful word that is better than a hundred medicines?

Imagine how the hospitals were in our countries during the height of the Islamic civilization. There was a hall called the comedy act hall for entertaining the patients; this was in the year 300 A.H! How developed were we! It was a hall where patients were admitted and they could find actors paid for by the hospital to give a comical performance. There was also a hall for listening to songs and music. There was another hall whose purpose was stranger still. Some of the patients suffered from insomnia and would worry when dawn had not broken yet, so in this hall there were those who said the azhan (call to prayers) in a pleasant, tranquil voice at regular intervals of time in order to calm the patient down and to reassure them that the breaking of dawn was near. Thus they heard different callers for prayers every few hours. There were also singers who would stay in a room near the patients’ room to sing Islamic songs all night in a quiet voice that would not wake those who were asleep, however it would make the ones who were awake feel that they had company.

We do not want to be astounded by the West and say that only the West is successful while we are losers. We are not good now but we will not stay bad forever. Our hope lies with the men and the youths who will change this situation within the next 20 to 30 years. The idea of the revival is not mere vain words, it will happen and it will happen by the hands of those who are with us today and those who watch us.

Concerning the art of dealing with the patients, in the West there is a subject called work ethics which, unfortunately, has not been taught in the Arab world except this year. This subject tells you that the doctor should not uncover the patient without asking him first, and I know that many ladies feel uneasy with the way they are uncovered by the doctor. The doctor may mean nothing bad, but there must be skill in dealing with the patient. Moreover, the doctor should ask the patient about who should and who should not know about his illness from his family or if he should keep the illness a secret from everybody. They teach them in the West that the body belongs to the patient, not the doctor.

The third recommendation I would like to make, if you may, is constant learning for the young and old doctors. You cannot say, “I have finished learning,” or, “I have no time.” This cannot be the case. Do you know why you should continue to learn all the time? Because this is a responsibility you are going to meet your Lord with; you will be asked on the Day of Judgment about four things, two of them are your life and how you spent it, and your youth and how you cherished it. This means that health is included; imagine a patient standing in front of Allah (SWT) on the Day of Judgment, who is asked, “Where did your health go? Where did your life go?” The patient would say, “Oh! Lord, this doctor destroyed my life and youth.”

Allah says what can be translated as, “and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other)” (TMQ, 49:13)[3]. Allah (SWT) gave each nation certain qualities to discover certain things, and other nations can discover other things, so that people would always be in need of each other and humanity would be united. Everyone has their part to play. What does that mean? I guess and only Allah (SWT) knows that the reason why there are so many diseases in the world with no cure is that we are slackening in scientific research and that there are many diseases in other nations whose cure we must find.

The fourth and last recommendation for doctors is to remind the patient of Allah. What does that mean? Remember that treatment with faith is stronger than the treatment of medication. I am not saying this because of religion only, but for the patient to recover and for you to succeed. Treatment with faith is stronger than medication. I shall give you a nice anecdote. There was a famous orthopedic doctor (specialized in bones and knee problems etc). This doctor treats most of the Egyptian football players and he is the reason behind helping most of them become religious, even though he has never talked to them about religion. How? This doctor is a great person, and all players need him because he is one of the best in his field. When they go to the doctor, they are made to repeat some of the exercises hundreds of times; to raise their legs in three stages and lower them in three stages. When they feel bored the doctor does something clever. He asks the player to say, “Al-hamdulilah,” (praise be to Allah (SWT)) three times while raising his leg. Then he lowers it down and says, three times, “La Ilaha Illa Allah,” (there is no god but Allah (SWT)), and he asks them to do it 300 times at home. The players told me, “When we started doing this, Allah’s name was on our tongues all day and after the ridiculous counting of 1-2-3, we started getting good deeds and doing the exercises hoping they would not finish.” Thus, treatment through faith is stronger than medication.

Now, I will address the patients. I want to tell you four things. The first is that I know of the diseases spread all over the Arab world now, such as hepatitis and kidney diseases etc. The first piece of advice is to be patient and I will tell you a nice thing: the reward for whoever is patient will be paradise. Thus patience during illness equals paradise. Do you know what paradise means? I will tell you a nice story. Ataa Ibn-Abu-Rabah met Ibn-Masood. Ibn-Masood was a companion but Ataa was a follower of the companions. Ibn-Masood told Ataa, “Let me show you a woman who will go to paradise,” and he pointed to a frail old woman. Ataa asked, “How do you know?” Ibn-Masood answered, “Once we were sitting with the Prophet and this woman came and told him that she suffered from epileptic fits that made her get uncovered and she asked the Prophet to pray for Allah to heal her.” What did the Prophet tell her? He said, “If you wish I can pray for Allah to heal you and if you wish you could accept and be patient and go to paradise.” She replied, “I choose to be patient and go to paradise.” The Prophet (SAWS) then said, “And you will get it.” What do you think?

Consider the following Hadith. The Prophet (SAWS) said, “No fatigue, nor disease, nor sorrow, nor sadness, nor hurt, nor distress befalls a Muslim, even if it were the prick he receives from a thorn, but that Allah expiates some of his sins for that.[4]” There is another element to illness, which is explained in the following verse where Allah says what can be translated as, “Surely (the) patient will only be paid their reward in full without reckoning.” (TMQ, 39:10).

Everyone on the Day of Judgment will be standing in queues waiting to be judged, but you will not have to do so if you were patient. Where will you go then? You will immediately go to jannah (paradise). To all those who are ill, my first advice to you is to be patient.

Ayyub (AS) (Job) is a great example, for he endured 18 years without being able to move. He was immobilized for 18 years! Imagine as his wife asked him, “Aren't you tired of this?” He replied, “What? How long has Allah kept us in bliss and comfort?” “Forty years,” she said. He asked, “And how long have we been in this affliction?” “Eighteen years,” she answered. He then said, “We will be patient until our affliction equals our days of bliss. Why should we get angry at these 18 years after 40 years of Allah's mercy?”

My second piece of advice is even sweeter than patience. It is being satisfied with Allah (SWT). It is not only about being patient, but about being patient and satisfied with what Allah (SWT) has planned. Satisfaction is a magical word. Do you know what I mean by magical? It means that when you are exhausted and feeling down, the word satisfaction lightens your heart, brightens you face, removes the wrinkles, and refreshes your heart. Do you know what this satisfaction means? Satisfaction means not blaming Allah (SWT) for what He does with what belongs to Him. Satisfaction leads to a heart that is peaceful with Allah (SWT), accepting what Allah (SWT) wants. Oh Allah (SWT), I get sick and I am satisfied. My son gets tired, something happens to him, and I am satisfied. Scholars say that this satisfaction is Allah's greatest door. Whoever enters through it enters paradise and the comfort of this world and ensures the paradise of the afterlife. Because you are satisfied with Allah (SWT), your heart will always be with Him.

Thus, I have advice for both the ill and the healthy. How does Islam train you to become satisfied? There are exercises that one must do daily, similar to exercising. What are these exercises for satisfaction? Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) said, “Whoever says three times in the morning and in the evening, 'I am satisfied with Allah as my Lord, with Islam as my religion, and with Muhammad (SAWS) as the Messenger and the Prophet,’ Allah will satisfy him on that day.”[5] Imagine how beneficial this exercise is. Whoever says it ensures Allah's satisfaction. The Prophet (SAWS) also said, “Whoever says when hearing the adhan (call to prayer), ‘I am satisfied with Allah as my Lord, with Islam as my religion, and with Muhammad (SAWS) as the Messenger and the Prophet,’ will be from the people of paradise.”[6] Can you imagine how great this satisfaction is! The Prophet (SAWS) also teaches us another dua’a (supplication), “Oh Allah, I ask you for satisfaction after the ordainment.”[7] Satisfaction comes after the ordainment, because before it we merely talk, but after it we have to show our satisfaction.

U'mran Ibn-Has'een was a venerable companion who fought with the Prophet (SAWS) for 20 years. After the Prophet's death, he became sick and he became disabled for 30 years; for 30 years he was confined to his bed, to such an extent that they had to make a hole in it so he could relieve himself. When people paid him a visit, they did not know what to say. He would tell them, “Something that Allah loved, I loved. Whatever Allah loves I will love.” You, who are ill, remember satisfaction. The words themselves are like medication, are they not? Insha’ Allah (if Allah (SWT) wills) they are.

There is also a story about U'rwa Ibnul-Zubair whose aunt was Lady Aisha (RA). U'rwa Ibnul-Zubair took his son to visit the ‘Prince of the Believers’ in Damascus. After reaching him, a disease infected his leg and when he was diagnosed, he was told that the leg must be amputated. His leg was therefore removed. Then, his son went to play with the horses in the stables of the Prince. The horses ran him over and the son died. U'rwa had eight sons and now one of them had died. In one day, his youngest son, who was closest to him, had died, and his leg had been cut off. Those who saw him did not know what to say. He would look at them and say, “Oh Allah, all thanks are to You. I had eight sons and You took one from me leaving me with seven. And I had four limbs and You took one leaving me with three. If You took things away from me, then you have also left things behind. And if You have put me on trial, then You have given forgiveness. Thanks to what You have left behind and thanks to what You have taken.” Satisfaction is Allah's greatest door. What do you think? To those who are ill, to those who are in good health: remember satisfaction.

The third point is that I advise you to increase your charity. Why? The Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) said, “Cure your sick ones with charity.”[8] Do you have someone who is ill? Then cure him or her with charity. There is a certain story that I will never forget because I experienced it personally. A friend of mine had a 5 year old son who did not eat well and kept on getting sick. The son was then diagnosed with cancer in its early stage. They were told that in two or three months the young boy would die. Can you imagine how great the father's pain was for his dying son? One day as he was walking in the street, he found an elderly woman searching for food in the trash can. He asked her what she was doing. She replied that she had four children to take care of, so he told her to come with him. He took her to his butcher and told him that this woman would come to him each month, and he told him to give her so and so and he (the father) would pay for it. This shows the art of giving charity. He then took her to the grocer and did the same thing. Afterwards, they went to the tailor for the same reason. In three week's time, his son began to improve gradually. The boy started eating. When visiting the doctors, they noticed the boy's improvement. The doctors asked to see the boy that was diagnosed earlier. The father informed them that that was him. They asked again about the boy with cancer. The father further emphasized again that that was him. The doctor was then perplexed and did not understand what happened. One day, he opened a book of Ahadith and read the following, “Cure your sick ones with charity.” He then closed the book and prayed to Allah (SWT). Oh Allah (SWT), he understood. That woman was sent by Allah (SWT) so that he could cure his son with charity.

My last and fourth piece of advice for those who are ill is to continue giving no matter what the illness was. What if someone's child has diabetes? Should this child get spoiled? The child should still work and be productive. We are an Ummah (a Muslim nation) that needs to give. We are an Ummah whose elderly should work so that the youth would wake up and discover that even the tired and elderly are working. If those who are tired work, then the youth who spend their time in cafes, smoking and playing cards, will realize that they should also join in. It would be shameful for them to sit and do nothing. We want everyone to work.

We ask them to visit the sick. Why is this difficult to do? Why is visiting the sick such an uneasy task? The Prophet (SAWS) said, “No Muslim will visit someone sick except that seventy thousand angels will pray for him,”[9] can you imagine this? Seventy thousand angels. When the Prophet (SAWS) became sick, who visited him? Jibril (AS) (Gabriel). He did not come down with new Ayat (verses) of the Qur’an this time, he came to visit him. He told him some very precious words to heal him, “In the name of Allah I pray for thee.” When I was in Egypt and we used to miss our kindheartedness, I used to take the youth to visit a graveyard. When we returned from these visits we used to come back very different. When I came to England, I tried to do this once but the graveyards there were all green, beautiful and planted with flowers. The graveyards there make life seem so beautiful, so how were we supposed to refuel our kindheartedness? We decided to visit the hospitals where they care for victims of burns. If you go there, believe me, your whole worship to Allah (SWT) will be multiplied by the tens. You will refuel the kindness and tenderness of your heart, so keep this advice in mind: visit the sick, go to the hospitals and take presents with you.

The second thing I want to ask the healthy to do is to remind those who are sick of Allah (SWT). Healing by faith is much better than healing by medicine. Remind those who are sick of Allah. Give them tapes to listen to, talk to them about religion, read Qur’an for them, given them rosaries. Remind them of Allah (SWT) as much as you can.

The third thing is: call Allah (SWT) for them and let them hear you while you do it. I will teach you what the Prophet (SAWS) used to say, “No man will visit a sick person (not yet on his death bed) and place his hand on the ailed part of his body saying seven times, ‘I ask Allah, the Greatest, Lord of the greatest throne, to heal you,’ except that Allah will heal this sick person.”[10] Learn this invocation by heart. I want to teach you another invocation that you can say to any sick person. Just look at the way the Prophet (SAWS) used to treat the ill! I ask all doctors to learn from him. If you can do this, all your patients will love you. The Prophet (SAWS) used to ask the sick person to show him where the pain could be felt, then he used to place his hand on the place and say, “O Allah, Lord of mankind, let the pain go away and heal it. You are the healer and there is no healing better than Yours. It is a healing that will take the pain away for good.”[11]

The last thing I would like to ask those who are in good health to do is to treat those who are sick in a normal way, without making them feel different. Try to lift their moral and ask them to work and produce. If your son is handicapped, are you just going to sit next to him to lament your fortune? No, you have to tell him that he is a man and that he has to work. Be a man and get moving. We do not want this look of pity that leads to nothing but more pain. I will show you a short film now. A very special film, because it carries a message. Let us watch it together.

The film shows a phone ringing. A secretary sitting behind a desk answers and says, “As-salamu alaykum, ok. Ok,” and then she hangs up. She then sends a fax and prints something on her printer. She looks at us and says, “I am very busy, my work is my whole life. Now you know everything about me. There’s just one thing that you still do not know.” The camera moves to the wheelchair she’s sitting on. The secretary is handicapped. She looks at the camera saying, “Did I startle you? I am Nariman. Are you still looking at me the same way as before? I wish you would focus on my skills instead of focusing on my problem.”

We need people with kind hearts after this episode. We need people who love each other. We need doctors who are kindhearted who can go to paradise. We need the sick to be patient in order to go to paradise. We need those who are feeling well to visit the sick. We want to restore our kind hearts. The revival of Europe was built on materialism. In our revival, we will have something that they lacked: humanity. We have humanity that is tightly connected to paradise and the acceptance and mercy of Allah. Allah says about the Prophet (SAWS) what can be translated as, “And in no way have We sent you except as a mercy to the worlds.” (TMQ, 21:107). Therefore, please put this episode into practice because it is very easy. In fact it is the easiest of all the episodes; it is the most tender one. I ask Allah (SWT) to let it reach you all.

The next episode will be one of the most important episodes in Life Makers. The whole project will take a totally new stance next time. Please follow the next episode with us because we will start working seriously. May Allah (SWT) inspire us, and may He lend us victory and dignity. See you next week Insha’ Allah.

[1] Sala-llahu Alaihi Wa-Sallam = All Prayers and Peace of Allah be upon him

[2] Tabaraka Wa Ta`ala [Most Blessed, Most High]

[3] TMQ=Translation of the Meaning of the Qur'an. This translation is for the realized meaning, so far, of the stated (Surah:Ayah) of the Qur'an. Reading the translated meaning of the Qur'an can never replace reading it in Arabic, the language in which it was revealed.

[4] Authentic. Narrated by Al-Bukhari, Al-Jamie’ Al-Sahih, 5641.

[5] Narrated by Hassan Ibn-Hijr.

[6] Authentic, Narrated by Muslim.

[7] Authentic Hadith. Narrated by Al-Albani, Kitab As-Suna, 426.

[8] Good Hadith. Narrated by Al-Albani, Sahih Al-Jami', 3358.

[9] Narrated by At-Tirmidhi

[10] Authentic, An-Nawawi, Al-Adhkar, 180.

[11] Authentic, Al-Bukhari, Sahih Al-Jamie’, 5742.

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Episode 41: Health – Part 3