Q. We are surprised to read in one of your answers that the Prophet (peace be upon him) permitted drinking camel’s urine as medically useful for a certain disease. What is even more surprising is the logic you used, saying that drinking the camel’s urine is permissible because its flesh is permissible to eat. If so, does this apply to other animals? This is contrary to all our knowledge. How authentic is this Hadith? Please review your answer and explain.
M. Asif • Jeddah
A. The Hadith is authentic, and scholars have taken it as the basis of several Islamic rulings, such as inflicting the capital punishment on a group of people if they took part in the murder of one person, and inflicting two or more punishments, even though one of these is death, if the offender had committed another crime before committing murder. The Hadith states: “A group of people from Uraynah and Ukl came to the Prophet, but then they were ill in Madinah. They complained to the Prophet and he said to them: ‘If you go out to where the charity camels graze, and drink from their urine and milk.’ They did. When they were cured, they killed the shepherds and took the camels away, and made war against God and His messenger. The Prophet sent a force to chase them and they were overtaken. He ordered the cutting of their hands and legs, popping their eyes and leaving them in the sun until they died.” (Related by Al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawood, Al-Nassaie and Al-Tirmidhi).
As you see, this Hadith is very authentic, and when we are faced with an authentic Hadith that is contrary to what we have learned, or to our preconceived ideas, we should look at it carefully, and revise our previous knowledge.
Before answering your criticism and explaining the rest of the Hadith, I would like to say that I never said that the camel’s urine is permissible to drink because the camel’s flesh is permissible to eat. What I said is that the urine of any animal that is permissible to eat is not impure, i.e. not najis. This applies to sheep, cows, goats, etc. The complaint of those people was a disease known as dropsy, which causes the tummy to swell and is very debilitating. The Prophet indicated to them that camel’s milk and urine are useful against this disease, and he also implied that staying outside Madinah, would be of benefit to their health, since they fell ill after they had stayed in the city for several days. Medical doctors have established that camel milk and urine are particularly useful for this disease. In most cases, the milk would be sufficient, but perhaps in their case, the disease was so severe that the Prophet ordered them to drink the camel’s urine as well. If you wish to look at this case more carefully, you need to study this disease and what cures it. You will then need to look at the particular qualities of camel’s milk and urine. You are bound to find out that they contain some qualities or ingredients that are particularly effective against dropsy.
Having been treated by the Muslim state, these people killed the shepherd tending the camels and stole the camels after they regained their health. Some versions of this Hadith make it clear that they also popped at least one shepherd’s eyes and left him to die. Thus, they were guilty of several crimes at the same time, including murder, torture of the shepherd, and making war against God and His messenger. Hence, the Prophet ordered that punishment for each of these crimes to be inflicted first, before they were executed. Their eyes were popped in retaliation for popping the shepherd’s eyes, and their limbs were cut because they made war against God and His messenger. This punishment is prescribed in the Qur’an: “It is but a just punishment of those who make war on God and His messenger, and endeavor to spread corruption on earth, that they should be put to death, or be crucified, or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides or that they should be banished from the land. Such is their disgrace in this world, and more grievous suffering awaits them in the life to come.” (5: 33) Scholars have based on this Hadith the ruling that committing a more serious crime does not waive the punishment of the lesser crime. Thus, the fact that these people killed the shepherds after popping the eyes of one of them did not limit their punishment to “death for killing”, but they were punished for the lesser offense first.
There was a recent case in Britain where the police were absolutely certain that two people took part in the killing of a child, but the police were unable to charge them with murder because they could not establish which of the two was the one who dealt the killing blow. In Islam, this is not needed. On the basis of this Hadith, the two would have been charged with murder and punished accordingly. All those people were punished for the same crime, because they all took part in it.
Arab News Islam 18 August 2003
