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Prophetic Medicine and Not Bleeding Into My Risotto

December 3, 2024

Should I have an aortic graph to extend my life for maybe five years I will, for the rest of my life, be on blood thinners; this, after a five hour operation under general amnestic and being put on and off a heart-lung machine which will probably leave me somewhat stupider than when I agreed to the procedure. My sister tells me I have brain cells to spare so I should not worry about that. She is being kind.

What I worry about is a quality of life that now hinges on going out for dinner without having to worry about my nose bleeding into my food because of blood with a viscosity approaching that of water. Of course, if I followed Muhammad’s medical advice for whatever ails you the idea of surgery would never come up.

At one time, there was talk of setting up a school of Prophetic Medicine. A concerted effort was made to set up such a school based on the sayings and the example of Muhammad and his Companions.

An attempt was made to create an alternative system of medical science, 'prophetic medicine' (tibb mabawi). This represented a reaction against the tradition which came from Galen. Its system was built upon what the Hadith recorded of the practices of the Prophet and his companions in regards to health and sickness. It was not created by medical men, however, but by lawyers and traditionalists who held the strict view that the Qur'an and Hadith contained all that was necessary for the conduct of human life. It was the view of a minority, even among religious scholars, and a critical opinion was expressed, with his robust good sense, by Ibn Khaldun. This kind of medicine, he asserted, could occasionally and accidentally be correct, but it was based on no rational principle.

Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab People, Harvard University Press, 1991, p. 203

The idea was dropped when it became clear that much of it was nonsense. Examples:

Narrated Abu Sa'id al-Khudri:

I heard that the people asked the Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him): Water is brought for you from the well of Buda'ah. It is a well in which dead dogs, menstrual clothes and excrement of people are thrown.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) replied: Verily water is pure and is not defiled by anything.

Abu Dawud 1.0067

Narrated Anas:

The climate of Medina did not suit some people, so the Prophet ordered them to follow his shepherd, i.e. his camels, and drink their milk and urine (as a medicine).

Bukhari 71.590

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah's Apostle said, "If a fly falls in the vessel of any of you, let him dip all of it (into the vessel) and then throw it away, for in one of its wings there is a disease and in the other there is healing (antidote for it) i.e. the treatment for that disease."

Bukhari 71.673

Narrated Maimuna:

Allah's Apostle was asked regarding ghee (cooking butter) in which a mouse had fallen.

He said, "Take out the mouse and throw away the ghee around it and use the rest."

Bukhari 4.236

Hadiths, sayings of Muhammad, like to above, along with the Koran, make up the immutable laws of Islam, if not the universe. When it comes to treating what ails you, it is a law that is often broken with impunity. The reason that Saudi Arabia, until recently, was ruled by a gerontology was more the result of modern medicine, especially advances and innovations in the treatment of coronary and heart disease, than whatever Muhammad prescribed. See Chapter “Prophetic Medicine,” A Thousand and One Sayings and Deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, Boreal Books for a large sample of Muhammad’s sayings and example as they relate to curing what ails you.

Muhammad was an illiterate and a man of his time, the Dark Ages. What about Allah who could not even accurately describe conception that is the fertilization of the ovum of a female by male sperm, giving the sperm all the credit? He even got the length of the gestation period wrong.

ALLAH AND THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE

(Abbreviated from Getting to Know Allah, Boreal Books)

A FLUID BEGINNING

25:54 And it is He who created from water a human being; then he made him a kin by blood or marriage. Your Lord is All-Powerful.

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77:20 Have we not created them from base water?

77:21 That We laid in a secure place;

77:22 Until an appointed term.

77:23 We determined, and what excellent determiners were We!

From “base water” deposited in the womb, Allah creates a human being with its two senses, a heart and no brain, as the heart was understood at the time of Muhammad to do much of what we know today to be the exclusive domain of the brain: thinking.

16:78 And Allah brought you out of your mothers’ bellies knowing nothing; and gave you hearing, sight and hearts, that perchance you may give thanks.

In another revelation about creating humans from H2O, it is “flowing water,” which Islamicstudies.info contends “means ejaculation.”

86:4 Every soul has a watcher;

86:5 So let man consider what he was created from.

86:6 He was created from flowing water;

86:7 Emanating from what lies between the loins and the breast-bones.

The amniotic sac, which ruptures at the onset of labour, is much closer to what God describes as the source of the water than are the testes. Then again, anatomy was never Allah’s strong suit.

Allah created all creatures from water.

24:45 Allah created every beast from water. Some of them crawl on their bellies, some walk on two feet and others walk on four. Allah creates whatever He pleases. Allah, indeed, has power over everything.

Revelations 75:37-39 bear a remote resemblance to what actually happens, if you ignore the role of a woman’s egg and the fact that the sex of an individual is decided at conception.

75:36 Does man think that he shall be left unattended (on Judgement Day)?

75:37 Was he not a drop of sperm released?

75:38 Then, he was a leech; then He created and fashioned (him);

75:39 Making of him a couple, male and female.

BONES THEN FLESH

There is no such stage when bones are formed first then coated with flesh.

23:14 Then we created out of the sperm a clot; then made from the clot a lump of flesh, then made the lump of flesh into bones; and then covered the bones with flesh; then fashioned him into another creation. So Blessed be Allah, the Best of Creators.

BEWARE OF THE CLOT

In Surah, The Clot, Allah reveals what Islamic scholars often point to as proof that He knew more about conception than was known at the time; that God was aware that babies developed from a fertilized egg, a zygote. They interpret “clot” in Verse 96:2 to mean zygote.

The Clot

96 Al-`Alaq

In the Name of Allah,

the Compassionate, the Merciful

96:1 Read, in the Name of your Lord, Who created:

96:2 He created man from a clot.

To back up their argument, they also point to Verse 22:5.

22:5 O people, if you are in doubt regarding the resurrection, We have indeed created you from dust, then from a sperm, then from a clot, then from a little lump of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, in order to show you. We deposit in the wombs whatever We please, for an appointed term; then we bring you out as infants; till you attain full strength. Some of you are made to die, and some are returned to the vilest age, so that they may not know, after having acquired some knowledge, anything. And you see the earth barren, but when We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells and produces vegetation of every pleasing variety.

Muhammad, in the following hadith, explains what Allah meant by clot, and it is not a zygote by any stretch of the imagination; it is something completely alien to what we know about the gestation process.

Narrated Abdullah bin Mus'ud:

Allah's Apostle, the true and truly inspired said, "(The matter of the Creation of) a human being is put together in the womb of the mother in forty days, and then he becomes a clot of thick blood for a similar period, and then a piece of flesh for a similar period. Then Allah sends an angel who is ordered to write four things. He is ordered to write down his (i.e. the new creature's) deeds, his livelihood, his (date of) death, and whether he will be blessed or wretched (in religion). Then the soul is breathed into him. So, a man amongst you may do (good deeds till there is only a cubit between him and Paradise and then what has been written for him decides his behavior and he starts doing (evil) deeds characteristic of the people of the (Hell) Fire. And similarly a man amongst you may do (evil) deeds till there is only a cubit between him and the (Hell) Fire, and then what has been written for him decides his behavior, and he starts doing deeds characteristic of the people of Paradise."

Bukhari 54.430

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE SPERM

6:98 And it is He Who created you from a single living soul; then [gave you] a resting place and a repository. Indeed, We have made plain Our signs for a people who understand.

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23:12 We have created man from an extract of clay;

23:13 Then we placed him as a sperm in a secure place;

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40:67 It is He who created you from dust, then from a sperm, then from a clot. Then He brings you out as infants; then allows you to come of age, then become old men. Some of you will pass away before that, but you will attain a fixed term, that perchance you might understand.

*****

In two revelations about the creation of Adam (see Chapter “Adam,” Shared Prophets, Boreal Books) God reveals He created him from dust; in another twelve, it is clay.

*****

A man is not the creator of the semen he emits during ejaculation.

56:57 We have created you, if only you would believe!

56:58 Have you seen the semen you emit?

56:59 Do you create it, or are We the Creators?

The semen that God has created is then deposited in the “resting place” that is the amniotic sack as “a sperm-drop” and from which He will fashion His “professed disputant,” the woman’s role being relegated to a “repository” for the sperm to grow into a male or female as directed.

16:4 He created man from a sperm-drop and, behold, he is a professed disputant.

Don’t be confused by the translator’s use of sperm, sperm-drop, semen, “extract of fluid” interchangeably; it’s all semen.

35:11 Allah created you from dust, then from a sperm, then made you into couples. No female bears or gives birth, save with His knowledge, and no man advances in years or his life-span is diminished, except as ordained in the Book. That indeed is an easy matter for Allah.

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32:7 Who fashioned well everything He created, and originated the creation of man from clay.

32:8 Then He fashioned his progeny from an extract of fluid.

32:9 Then He shaped him well and breathed into him of His Spirit. He gave you hearing, sight and hearts. How little do you give thanks!

Another reminder from Allah about what He created from a sperm and a sperm only:

80:17 May man perish! How thankless he is!

80:18 Of what did He create him?

80:19 Of a sperm, He created him and determined him.

MENSTRUATION AS AN IMPURITY

2:222 And they ask you about menstruation say: “It is an impurity.” So keep away from women during their menstruation and do not approach them (do not have sexual relations with them) until they are clean. Once they get clean get to them as Allah commanded you. Allah loves the repentant and loves those who purify themselves.

If God had been aware of the roles a woman’s eggs and menstruation play in the reproductive cycle, would He have considered her contaminated during her menses. I don’t think so.

THE SUCKLING IMPERATIVE

(Abbreviated from Women and the Koran, Boreal Books)

According to Ya'qubi, an Arab historian and geographer, Muhammad once said that his first wet nurse was the nastiest of women and that she would burn for all eternity in the fires of Hell. To quench her thirst, she would only have the small amount of milk she allowed him to suckle in the days following his birth. The revelations on how long a mother or wet-nurse must suckle a child, and what the parents must do if they choose to shorten the weaning period decreed by Allah, may have had something to do with God’s awareness that His Messenger had not been adequately breastfed as a baby.

2:233 Mothers shall suckle their children for two whole years; [that is] for those who wish to complete the suckling. Those to whom the children are born (the fathers) shall maintain and clothe them kindly. No soul is charged beyond its capacity. No mother should suffer on account of her child and he to whom a child is born should not suffer on account of his child. The same [duties (the maintenance and clothing of divorced women)] devolve upon the [father’s] heir (if the heir is a child and has a guardian the latter would be charged with those duties). But they commit no offence if by mutual agreement and following consultation they choose to wean the child. You also commit no offence if you engage wet-nurses, provided that you give them what you promised to give kindly. Fear Allah and know that Allah has knowledge of what you do.

If the decreed suckling period is 24 months, then Allah, in the following verse where He reveals a gestation and weaning period totaling 30 months, has underestimated the gestation period of the human fetus by three months (30 - 24 = 6 months in the womb).

46:15 We have commanded man to be kind to his parents; his mother bore him painfully and delivered him painfully, his gestation and weaning totalling thirty months. When he is fully grown and turns forty, he will say: “Lord, inspire me to be thankful for the favour, with which You have favoured me and favoured my parents; and to do a righteous deed, well-pleasing to You. Grant me righteousness in my progeny; I have truly repented to You and one of those who submit.”

Suckling a non-relation adult male renders him the equivalent of a close relation.

Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hadhaifa, lived with him and his family in their house.

She (i. e. the daughter of Suhail) came to Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) and said: Salim has attained (puberty) as men attain, and he understands what they understand, and he enters our house freely, I, however, perceive that something (rankles) in the heart of Abu Hudhaifa, whereupon Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) said to her: Suckle him and you would become unlawful for him, and (the rankling) which Abu Hudhaifa feels in his heart will disappear.

She returned and said: So I suckled him, and what (was there) in the heart of Abu Hudhaifa disappeared.

Sahih Muslim 8.3425