We continue today with the basic principles of health, as outlined in Dr. Khayat’s dissertation on the Fiqh of Health. He points out that the Prophet placed the whole issue of the treatment of illness in its proper perspective. He was once asked by some of his companions: “Do our supplication, medication and methods of prevention prevent anything that God has willed?” He replied: “These are also part of God’s will.” Thus the Prophet makes it clear that one aspect of God’s will may be prevented by another. Islam leaves no room for fatalism, even though it may be mistaken for reliance on God, as it is the case today with many Muslims who lack proper Islamic knowledge.
The Prophet also opposes so-called faith-healing. He approved medicine that relies on study and experimentation, seeking to relate causes to effects. He wanted his community to shed ignorance and to seek knowledge. As for medication that relies on superstition, charms and incomprehensible jabbering and tricks, that is forbidden in Islam. The Prophet says: “Whoever wears a charm is guilty of associating partners with God.”
Dr. Khayat deduces the basic principles of the Fiqh of health protection directly from the Qur’an. He mentions that the rules relating to health protection are ‘general rules which fit in well with the natural laws that God has put in place to promote the well-being of His creation. God says in the Qur’an: “Praise the name of your Lord, the Most High, who has created all things and proportioned them.” (87: 1-2)
“O man! What has enticed you from your gracious Lord who has created and well proportioned you, and given you a perfect molding?” (82: 6-7) “By the soul and Him who has molded it in perfect proportions.” (91: 7) To preserve this situation of perfect molding and right proportion is an important objective of Islamic law. Indeed Islamic law aims to serve the interests of people and to prevent everything which adversely affects them.”
Dr. Khayat states that one of the most important texts from which we may deduce the Fiqh of health is God’s statement in the Qur’an: “He enforced the balance; that you may not transgress the balance. Give strictly just weight and do not fall short in the balance.” (55: 7-9) This comprehensive statement mentions the balance which God has established in the universe, with its different forces and influences, including man. It draws our attentions to this balance which applies to everything, making clear that any disturbance of the balance, whether by increase or decrease, may lead to terrible consequences. God says: “Mankind! Your transgression will rebound on your own selves.” (10: 23)
Muslim doctors fully understood this and applied it to health, referring to this dynamic balance as a “state of equilibrium.” Ali ibn Al-Abbas says: “Health means that the body is in a state of equilibrium.” Ibn Sina says: “The state of equilibrium which a human being enjoys has a certain range with an upper and a lower limit.” It is, then, like a balance which moves between two extreme limits.
To maintain this health balance in the state of equilibrium, protect it against imbalance, and restore it to its proper position every time it is disturbed, a human being must have a ‘health potential’, so to speak. This is referred to in the Hadith, quoting the Prophet as saying: “And store up enough health to draw on during your illness”. Abdullah ibn Umar, who reports this Hadith, also relies on an authentic Hadith that advises us to make use of five aspects of God’s grace before we lose them. Thus, the Prophet advises that we make full use of ‘health before falling ill.’
The health potential may take the form of proper nutrition, or good immunity, or physical fitness which enables a person to cope well with the stress which the body may face. Health potential may also be in the form of mental and personal security and stability which enables people to deal with the mental stress that may beset them. Indeed, the health potential is all these aspects put together.
The World Health Organization considers its assignment of two important dimensions to health, namely health balance and health potential, to be among the great discoveries of the modern era. Within these two dimensions the World Health Organization approved its definition of health just over fifty years ago as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Dr. Khayat, who was deputy regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region in the World Health Organization, compares this recent definition with the definitions of doctors who combined medical and Islamic studies and attained prominence in the heyday of Islamic civilization. Ibn Al-Nafees defined health 700 years ago as: “A state of the body in which functions are normal per se, while disease is the opposite state.” A century earlier, Ibn Rushd, an Islamic and medical scholar defined health as: “A state in which an organ performs its normal function or undergoes its normal reaction.” In his book, Kamil Al-Sina’ah, written 1000 years ago, Ali ibn Al-Abbas states that health is “a state of the body in which functions are run in the normal course.”
Thus, in our medical scholarship throughout history, Islamic doctors made health their starting point, while illness is the opposite to it. This is a reflection of their understanding of what God says in the Qur’an: “Your gracious Lord… has created and well proportioned you, and given you a perfect molding.” (82: 6-7) “Your Lord… has created all things and well proportioned them.” (87: 2) “We have created man in a most perfect image.” (95: 4) “By the soul and Him who has molded it in perfect proportions.” (91: 7)
1 M.H. Khayat, Health: an Islamic Perspective, P. 8, WHO, Alexandria, 1997 2 Khayat, ibid, P.7.
