Part 32

It is worth your while to reflect on the benefits and healing properties that the honey confers. Honey is a constituent of most medicines, in such a degree that the ancients did not know sugar, nor is it even mentioned in their books. What they used with their medicines was honey, and that is what you see mentioned in their books. Indeed it is more beneficial than sugar, more effective and more purifying of humours, more ameliorating and alleviating and supplying with resistance to injury. It is more strengthening for the stomach, raising of spirits, lifting of the soul, enhancing the catalytic medicines and assisting in tracing ailments in the furthest reaches of the body. It is on this account that sugar was never mentioned in the traditions of the Prophet 3 nor was it even known to his contemporaries. If the world were without sugar, it would not be missed, while if honey were lacking, there would be a great demand for it. Some towns have so taken to using sugar that they have given up honey, and they

prefer the taste of sugar to that of honey; they find the former less sharp and intense than the latter. They do not realize that the honey’s benefit lies in its very sharpness and intensity. If somebody finds it not fit for his body, he is recommended to soften the honey’s sharpness with other foods, and in this way it will be more beneficial than sugar. I shall devote a chapter to this issue, ' Allah willing, in which I detail honey’s superiority over sugar, supporting this in many undeniable ways, and listing many irrefutable proofs. Have you ever seen sugar clearing phlegm, melting a humour or healing from an illness? The utmost sugar can do is to ease the passage of medicine in vessels because of its mildness and sweetness.

Conditions for healing with honey

As for healing by the use of honey, Allah has denied some people benefiting from the healing power in it, in such a way that they speak ill of it, dreading its unfavourable effects, because of its heat and sharpness. We have no doubt about honey being a healer; or, for that matter, about the Qur’an being a healer, prayer being a healer, remembrance of Allah and supplication to him being a healer - all these do not benefit each and every one and each and every disposition. Take the case of the Book of Allah, the sublime healer, the greatest of healers; but how few are those who seek healing in it! It indeed gives people with poor dispositions nothing but worsening of their plight, and only increases the ruin of the evil-doers. In the same way, the remembrance of Allah, taking refuge in Him, coming close to Him, and taking refuge in prayer have healed so many suffering people, and eased the sickness of so many sick people, and have taken the place of so many medications, which never rival it in their

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curing power. Nevertheless, you see how many people, indeed the majority of people, do not have any hope of finding remedy in such means. I did see, though, in the medical books written by Muslims, under the lists of single remedies, mention of prayer in its alphabetical place, where the writers mention several physical ways in which prayer represents a remedy, and many psychological and spiritual benefits as well.

I also heard our Sheikh Abu Al-Abbas Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah bless. him, recounting the conversation between him and a physician concerning an ailment that he had. The physician said: ‘Nothing aggravates your case like scholarly discussions and thoughts, and the supplication and remembrance of Allah.’ Ibn Taymiyyah retorted: ‘Don’t you claim that if the morale is raised and one has high spirits there will result an internal power that assists the physical power of resistance so that it overcomes the disease, since a disease is an adversary that the organism needs some internal power to defeat?’ “Yes, it is so,’ said the physician. ‘When my mind is concentrating on remembrance of Allah, supplication to Him, and scholarly discussions, and I accomplish some success in untangling some of the problems in that direction, I feel elated and have internal power, which assists in defeating the ailment.’ This is the essence of his account.

What we are trying to say is that if many people ignore healing by honey, it does not make it less possessing of the property of curing, in the same way as most people’s abandoning of the use of the Qur’an for healing from the heart’s diseases does not make it less possessive of the property of healing them. It is a remedy for what besets hearts, even if most patients fail to benefit from this power. This may be supported by the following verse from the Qur’an:

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“O mankind! There has come to you an exhortation from your Lord, a healing for that which is in the breasts, a guidance and a mercy for believers.” (10: 57)

We notice here that the Qur’an offers preaching and healing to people at large, while it confines guidance and knowledge to some. This means that it is a healer in itself, whether a human helps himself to this capacity of it or not. Nothing is described by Allah in His Book as being a healer except the Qur’an and honey; they are the healers, one a healer of hearts, healing them from misguidance and _ aberration, their doubts and caprices; and the other is a healer of bodies from many of their diseases, complications and ailments.

While I visited Makkah, I had many ailments. There was no physician there or medications as in other towns; so I sought healing from honey and the Zamzam water, and I discovered in them an amazing source of healing! Regard how the Almighty Lord describes the Qur’an as a healer in itself, while He said of honey

“In it there is cure for people.” (16: 69). What is a healer in itself is more effective than what has a healing power. This is not the place, however, for exhausting the benefits and uses of honey.”

*See Volume Four of Ibn al-Qayyem’s “Zad al-Ma’ad”, chapter on the Prophet’s % tradition of treatment with drinking honey, cupping and cautery.

Milk Turn your attention, also, to the message embodied in the cattle, the milk that Allah has given us from their bellies, a pure delicious, wholesome, soft drink that emerges from between the refuse and blood. Regard how they swallow food through their mouth down to the stomach, where some, with the will of Allah, turns into blood, and then the blood runs through its vessels, organs, flesh and hair. As the vessels deliver it to the different parts, each organ, nerve, cartilage, hair, hoof and claw transforms it to its own composition! Then the blood stays in those stores that are reserved for it, since the animal cannot survive without it; and then the refuse of the blood is pushed out to the intestines where it is transformed to dung, while the rest turns to pure white milk, smooth for the drinkers, emerging from between entrails and blood. If the ewe or another animal is overmilked, the milk will be reddish in colour. The Almighty Allah filtered the softer part of the chime with the first processing, being blood when it was conducted to the liver; then it was mingled with the four humours, Next, the Exalted and Majestic Allah caused each of the four humours to pass toward its store and location, which is prepared for it: the gall bladder, the spleen and the kidney. The rest of pure blood runs along the liver’s vessels, pouring from there to the breast, where Allah, the Almighty, transforms its bloody shape, composition, and flavour, to the milky shape, composition and flavour. This is how it is extracted from between entrails and blood. So ask the denier: Who managed things this way? Who designed them with this design? Who did things that carefully? Who showed so much kindness? Who but the Gentle, the Knower?

The hornet Figure “74”

The wondrous world of bees Figure “75”

The wondrous world of insects

The carpenter ant, seen in this picture belongs to a genus of insects that is widely spread in the world. Some of its species cause great ruin to Pe ~ wooden buildings.

Think now of the fish, and the message embodied in it, the way it was created! That it was created without legs, as it does not need to walk, since it lives in water. It was not provided with lungs, as lungs are for breathing, and the fish are immersed in water. In place of the legs, it was provided with sturdy fins, which it uses to row on its sides, in the same way as a boatman uses his oars to row on the sides of the boat. Its skin is covered with scales that are overlapping to protect it from injuries in the same way as a chest is protected in other organisms. It was endowed with the sense of smell to compensate for its weak vision, and the water blocking its sight. However, it smells food from a far distance and moves towards it. It is mentioned in some books on animals that a fish has a canal that connects its mouth to the outer ear canal, so it takes water in its mouth, and passes it out through that canal, which gives it relief, in the same way as a land animal inhales a cool breeze into its nose, then exhales it, to refresh itself. A sea animal is similar to a land animal. The sea and the land are in fact two oceans, distinguished from each other in the extra softness of one in comparison with the other. The ocean of the atmosphere is the place for the land animal to float, and the sea is the ocean for the sea animal to swim in. Each would die if transferred to the other ocean. A sea animal would suffocate with air in the same way as a land animal would suffocate in water. So glory be to Him whose wonders are beyond the calculation of all creation, nor can any creature encompass the marvels of evena single wonder. If we get to know some miracle, we still are ignorant of others!

There is a species of fish, called, the ‘electric’, which kills its prey with an electric charge. It even has control of the intensity of the electric charge, lights its way in the dark, and turns it off at will. Some red Indian tribes even used this kind of fish in treating certain varieties of rheumatism, employing the electric power of that fish.