The Universal Principle: Every Disease Has Its Cure
So for every ailment, for every disease, there is a cure for it. ALlāh created that disease, and He has also created and sent down to us a cure for that disease. Every illness, every ailment, every trial, every condition that causes you discomfort and inconvenience is a disease—and it has its own cure. Every ailment has been created by ALlāh and has a cure. What remains is that those who know it will know it.
In the hospital sometimes, the registrar or the younger doctors and general practitioners will give a diagnosis. After supervision by the consultant, the younger doctor might say, “I don’t know how to handle it.” The consultant will say, “This is the way to handle it,” and it will be the correct way to handle that ailment. So that cure for that ailment that ALlāh has sent down—those who know it, know it, and those who do not know it, do not know it.
All that Ibn-ul-Qayyim had said will give strength and will strengthen the mind of the sick, and it will give hope to the doctor. If you are a doctor, keep this in mind. And if you are a sick person—O brother, O sister—of any circumstance, of any ailment, know this: ALlāh has not sent down any ailment except that He has sent down along with it its cure. Those who know the cure, they know the cure. Those who are ignorant of the cure, of course, they are ignorant of the cure, but the cure is there. Whether a person knows it or whether he is ignorant about it, it has a cure.
This is a revelation to the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم), and the prophets would speak only from revelation. What we have from ALlāhu Subhānahu wa Ta’ālā is that there is not a sin, there is not a disease, there is not a trouble, there is not an ailment except that ALlāh has sent down the cure for it. It covers diseases of the mind, of the soul, and it also covers diseases of the body—these are the three places where diseases affect us.
The Three Categories of Diseases
Diseases of the Heart (Amrād-ul-Qulūb)
The disease is either connected to the heart. Let me give examples:
Ash-Shakk (الشك): This is when the individual is always in doubt about his affairs. He is in doubt—he knows 50% of it and does not know 50% of it. So he goes back and forth. This is ash-shakk.
Al-Hasad (الحسد): When he finds goodness with someone, he is displeased. When she finds goodness with a person, she is not pleased. She wants that goodness to be taken away from that person. This disease is called al-hasad. It is a disease connected to the heart.
Al-‘Ajz (العجز - Weakness): The individual has this when he becomes unable. He or she is hardly able to do something—always being unable to do something. He knows that “this thing will bring benefit to me,” but he finds himself unable to do it.
Al-Kasal (الكسل - Laziness): This is something close to al-‘ajz. In al-kasal, the kaslān (lazy person) has the ability, but he just does not do it. In al-‘ajz, he is unable—he is hardly able to do anything. All these are diseases of the heart.
Al-‘Ishq (العشق): Let me, for the purposes of convenience, translate this as infatuation. The man becomes infatuated with a woman, or the woman becomes infatuated with a man—unlawfully. The woman is not his wife. He becomes infatuated with her, or she becomes infatuated with him. He becomes unable to sleep unless he talks to her, unless he calls her, unless he messages her, and vice versa. This is al-‘ishq. It is among the diseases of the heart. The point we are making here is that it has a cure. These diseases have a cure.
Ar-Rān (الران): I would like to draw our attention to another disease the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) mentioned—Rān. ALlāh mentioned it in Sūrat-ul-Mutaffifīn: “Nay! But on their hearts is the Rān” (83:14). ALlāh had referred to them as Mu’tadīn Athīm (83:12)—transgressors and criminals. Mu’tadīn in that verse refers to those who go beyond limits. When ALlāh sets the limits, they violate the limits.
When you call their attention to the creations of ALlāh and that He alone deserves worship, they say, “This is an old story.” The problem with them is that their hearts are already dead. The sins have corrupted their minds.
So this kind of individual has something in their heart. That disease is called Rān—it is a disease that covers the heart. The Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: “When a person commits a sin, this is how a Rān comes on the heart. When a person commits a sin, that sin becomes a black spot on his heart. If he makes tawbah from that sin,” he (عليه الصلاة والسلام) said, “his heart becomes pure and clean again. But if he continues to increase in sin, that black spot continues to expand.”
Brothers, take care of this sin. It comes when the individual continues to commit one sin after another. There is a black dot that comes to your heart when you start. That black dot is a disease of the heart. But as we have said, this illness itself—this Rān itself—has a cure, and the cure for Rān is at-Tawbah (التوبة—repentance). Because when you make tawbah, the heart becomes purified.
The point here is that these are diseases of the heart. Since ibn-ul-Qayyim said that every sin has a cure, this means that even the sins of the heart have cures. One disease of the heart is ar-Rān, and its cure is at-Tawbah. I hope this is clear. If you take ar-Rān to the hospital, the doctors cannot cure it. It is ar-Rān that makes a man kill somebody, and when he is asked about it, he says, “I don’t care. I don’t have any regrets,” because he already has ar-Rān on his soul.
Diseases of the Soul (Amrād-ur-Rūh)
Now, as for ar-rūh (الروح—the soul), there are diseases connected to your soul. The scholars have mentioned four of them:
Al-Massu (المس): When a jinn afflicts a person. This one does not have a cure in a teaching hospital—when a jinn afflicts someone.
Al-‘Ayn (العين): Someone becomes afflicted with al-‘ayn (the evil eye). The ‘ayn becomes a means of afflicting another individual, but it is his rūh that the affliction affects. An individual—you see someone who has ‘ayn—like a sister we knew. This case was also reported to me, and I spoke to the husband of the sister who had that ‘ayn. How did we know she was the one who had the ‘ayn?
When the afflictor had her bath, in the way the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) taught us that such illnesses be cured—he said they should wash the tips of their clothes and make wudū’, collect the water, and pour it on the person suffering from the affliction of the eye. The person will stand up.
So you see the disease, you see the cure. That woman in the case I just mentioned—when she did this, the sister who had that trouble stood up from that illness. Her stomach was just getting swollen up. She was a roommate to the sister who was afflicted. The one who was afflicted used to show them, by way of display, her flat, beautiful stomach as students in the university. So the eye of the other one afflicted her.
As-Sihr (السحر): When a person becomes afflicted with sihr (magic/witchcraft), sihr afflicts the soul. You can only see the manifestations on the body, but what actually happens is that the affliction goes to the rūh of the afflicted.
Al-Hasad (الحسد): When the hāsid (envious person) shoots that arrow, it comes from his mind, but it goes to the rūh of the person suffering from the affliction from the hāsid. This is the one we ask protection from in Sūrat-ul-Falaq: “wa min sharri hāsidin idhā hasad” (وَمِن شَرِّ حَاسِدٍ إِذَا حَسَدَ—“and from the evil of an envier when he envies”).
Diseases of the Body (Amrād-ul-Jism)
As for the sickness connected to the body, we know those ones: your headache, malaria, COVID-19, cancer, diabetes—all these are connected to the body. In all of these, the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: “ALlāh has not sent down each and every one of these diseases except that He has sent down their cure together with them.”
A Clear Example: Ignorance as a Disease
The Imam wants to give us a clear example from the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم). Al-Imam ibn-ul-Qayyim (رحمه الله) said: The Prophet has mentioned al-jahl (الجهل—ignorance) as a disease.
So brothers, know this: when a person becomes ignorant about matters—which I’ll come back to clearly—he is suffering from a disease. The extent of his disease is the extent of his ignorance. Being ignorant of the matters of religion is a disease. What is the cure for that disease of ignorance? The cure for it is al-‘ilm (العلم—knowledge), as we shall see. The Prophet has mentioned al-jahl (ignorance) as a disease, and he mentioned the cure for that disease as asking the scholars.
Let me make one point here and proceed. He said: “Ask the scholars.” He did not say artificial intelligence. The Prophet did not say that. Many of the elites these days, when they have a query, when they have a worry, when they have a jahl disease regarding a matter of religion, instead of asking a learned person, they type it to ask artificial intelligence. It is a mistake. You are not finding a cure for your disease. When you have diabetes, do you ask artificial intelligence? Is that the one who diagnoses you in the hospital? For the sake of ALlāh, let us correct this.
The Hadith: A Fatal Case of Ignorance
In this hadīth we will read now—Abu Dawūd cited in his Sunan on the authority of Jābir ibn ‘AbdiLlāh—he said: “We went on a journey, and one of us got injured with a stone. A stone reached one of us, and that stone wounded him on his head. Then he slept, and then he had a wet dream. He asked those who were with him: ‘Would you find tayammum as a means of ease for me?’ That is, ‘Do you think it’s appropriate for me to make tayammum considering my situation?’”
He was injured by a stone on his head and was bleeding from it, when water was available. Because one of the instructions regarding tayammum is that you didn’t find water. But here there was water. So they said to him that they do not find any rukhsah (ease) for him when he is in a condition where he can find water. So this man took those words from his companions, went on, and had a bath. Don’t forget—he had a serious injury on his head. Then he died from having to take a bath on an injured head when he should have made tayammum.
The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: “They had killed the man. They killed the man.” How did they kill the man? They killed him with a wrong verdict. They killed him with wrong advice. “They killed the man”—meaning that sometimes, may ALlāh protect us, Shaykh, Ustādh, when you don’t know, say you don’t know. Because your answer can kill a person.
He said: “They killed the man. May ALlāh kill them.” Yes, the scholar says this by way of warning to the rest of us about answering questions you don’t know about, about the necessity to search for knowledge regarding every matter, and about understanding that al-jahl (ignorance) is a disease. It can kill the ignorant, just like in this case—this man did not know. He asked and got a wrong answer. And it can make you become a person who kills other persons.
The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: “Shouldn’t they have asked when they do not know? Should they not have asked when they do not know?” O brother, when you don’t know, ask. Look for a learned person and ask. When you don’t know, ask, O woman. Look for a learned person and ask.
The Importance of Learned People in the Community
There is also a point of benefit here: the importance of learned people in our community. Communities should deliberately develop, evolve, support, and bring about learned people who will guide that community upon this dīn called Islam. There must always be learned people who are upon true knowledge and guidance, who will provide help of learning and guidance for the rest of the people. The Prophet (عليه الصلاة والسلام) said: “Should they not have asked when they do not know?”
When you don’t know about salāh, you don’t know about zakāh, you want to perform Hajj but you don’t know about it, you don’t know about Tawhīd—all those aspects of the religion about which you are ignorant, you are diseased regarding them. That ignorance, al-jahl, is a disease. May ALlāh protect all of us.
This will be a call for all of us to wake up and pay greater attention to learning the religion, because that is the cure for our disease of ignorance. And that disease varies from individual to individual. The more you are ignorant about religion, the more disease you have as far as al-jahl is concerned.
Note: [It was simply sufficient for him to make tayammum—he should tie or wrap the injured parts with a piece of clothing. He would wipe on top of that wrap, that bandaged part of the head. He should have just wiped on it and washed the rest of his body. This part of this hadīth is not authentic. The hadīth stops at “the cure for ignorance is asking.”
If someone asks: if a man is in this kind of condition, what should he do? What he should do is simply make tayammum. How does he make tayammum? You put your hands—both hands, the palms—together on the earth. You dust it off. You rub or wipe your palms and your face. That’s all.]
We used to say when we were younger: “Ignorance is a disease. Ignorance is a disease. Ignorance is a disease.” So we know that this is not just a statement—it is something that has come from the Messenger (عليه الصلاة والسلام).
The Universal Cure: Al-Qur’ān
ibn-ul-Qayyim wants to open a completely different chapter. He wants to tell us about another means of cure that is general for all diseases—for diseases of the mind, diseases of the soul, and diseases of the body. There is a general cure, and that cure is al-Qur’ān. Al-Qur’ān is a cure for all. Whether that disease is a disease of the heart, whether the disease is a disease of the rūh, whether that disease is a disease of the body’s limbs—the Qur’ān is a cure for all.
May ALlāh preserve Shaykh Abu Nāsir upon goodness.
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