Prescription 3: Every Malady Has A Treatment
إن لكل داء دواء
One who has appreciated the reality that Allah alone is the healer, and that nothing transpires save by His leave and control, would easily comprehend that it is possible for every malady to have a medicine and treatment. For him, science would not be the criterion of judgement, for science is based on experimentation and generalizations’, both of which cannot be taken as proofs to establish reality.
Furthermore, not having found the cure does not mean that there is no cure. For this very reason, research on the methods of curing different ailments continue.
The Holy Prophet (S) is reported to have said:
إن لكل داء دواء
Indeed, for every malady there is a medicine.1
Hence, if medical science with its extensive research cannot come up with a medicine for a specific malady, it should not lead one to conclude that there is no medicine for that. The fault, rather, is the imperfection and incompleteness of the research. Otherwise, when the Apostle of God, who represents God on earth and communicates His message to the people, says anything, it is sufficient as truth.
In another tradition this subtle reasoning has been expressed in a beautiful way. Jabir ibn ʿAbdullah al-Ansari is reported to have said that the Holy Prophet (S) said:
لِكُلِّ دَاءِ دَوَاء فَإِذَا أَصِيبَ دَوَاءِ الدَاءِ بَرِئَ بِإِذْنِ اللهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ
For every malady there is a medicine, and when the medicine of the malady is obtained, the ailing one is relieved by the permission of Allah, the Invincible and Majestic.2
The phrase ‘fa idha usiba dawaʾu al-daʾ’ (“and when the medicine of the malady is obtained”) in the above tradition informs us that the problem is not the absence of medicine, but rather the incompleteness of research on the part of medical scholars to discover and obtain the cure of the apparently incurable malady.
In another tradition, the Holy Prophet (S) is reported to have said:
مَا أَنْزَلَ اللهُ دَاءً إِلا قَدْ أَنْزَلَ لَهُ شِفَاءٌ عَلِمَهُ مَنْ عَلَمَهُ وَجَهلَهُ مَنْ جَهِلَهُ
Allah did not send down any malady save that He had already sent a cure for it; whosoever knew it knew it, and whosoever was ignorant of it was ignorant of it3
The phrase ‘… ʿalimahu man ʿalimahu wa jahilahu man jahilahu’ above is worthy of reflection. It tells us that the medicine is always there, and that the victor is the one who discovers the medicine.
The expression of sending down (inzal) employed in the tradition refers to the descent of divine grace from a high plane of existence to the material world, where it is manifested. It is not a process of physical displacement such that something that existed in a higher plane of physical existence leaves its place and comes down.
Actually, everything in the material world is sent down in the former sense at each and every moment. Hence all the natural phenomena are actually sent down. This needs a comprehensive introduction which is beyond the scope of this short treatise.4 The Holy Qur’an, however, alludes to this significant reality in the following verse:
وَإِنْ مِنْ شَيْءٍ إِلَّا عِنْدَنَا خَزَائِنُهُ وَمَا نُنَزِّلُهُ إِلَّا بِقَدَرٍ مَعْلُومٍ
There is not a thing but that its sources are with Us, and We do not send it down except in a known measure. (Surah al-Hijr, 15:21).
Notice the phrase ‘… wa ma nunazziluhu illa bi-qadarin maʿlum’ (… “and We do not send it down except in a known measure”), which clearly tells us that there is a kind of tanzil and gradual descent of everything. The phrase ‘in min shayʾ’ signifies ‘everything’.
The doctor therefore who has not found the medicine of a specific malady should continue his struggle while encouraging the patient to pray to Allah, who is always the fundamental healer.
This reminds me of a statement made by one of my associates in the holy city of Qum. I had asked him to pray for a classmate who was suffering from leukemia, and he said something worthy of contemplation: “For Allah, cancer is just like suffering from a cold.”
Yes, it is He who gave the two ailments their characteristics and natural courses, and thus one who has a cold normally recovers quickly, whereas one who has leukemia is faced with death. However, because everything is absolutely in His hands, curing one ailment is no more difficult than curing the other. It is this monotheistic reality one must inculcate in oneself and rely on the Absolute Healer.
Bearing this in mind, the ailing patient must try to achieve a complete connection to Allah (al-inqitaʿu ila Allah) and ask Him to cure the malady he is suffering from.
History has shown several incidents of those who suffered from diseases that science claimed to be incurable, but the Healer practically demonstrated the opposite.
- 1. ‘Allamah Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, v. 59, p. 76.
- 2. Al-Nawawi, al-Majmu’, v.5, p. 107.
- 3. Ibn Hanbal, Musnad Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, v.1, p. 377.
- 4. A good reference book that explains this reality is Hasti wa hubut (Existence and Fall) by Shaykh Hamid Parsaniya, which has been translated by Shaykh Shuja’ ‘Ali Mirza and published by ICAS, London.