Heal Your Sick With Charity

"The medicine doesn't seem to help and I just feel miserable everyday!"

It is pretty common that when a person is sick that they sometimes feel hopeless. We often forget that most medicines in use today are poisons with a beneficial effect in cases of specific illnesses, but just because it makes your blood pressure better, or helps kill that bacteria making you sick, it often has some nasty effects on the rest of the body. In our modern world though, the first, and sadly, only, place that many people turn to when they become sick is the doctor or hospital. We have forgotten that almost all diseases respond to a multimodal approach to treatment: physical, dietary, mental and spiritual. 

Physically, it makes sense to trust your doctor when he or she recommends a certain course of treatment with medication. Your doctor has sworn an oath to "do no harm" and they studied hard (and often continue to stay up-to-date with more studying) to make sure they do you no harm. This is the realm of medication, and sometimes beneficial supplements.

From a dietary standpoint, we must always remember that food can be the source of disease just as often as it can be the source of healing. Our own Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) has stated in an authentic hadith narrated by Al-Miqdam ibn Ma’dikarib: “The son of Adam cannot fill a vessel worse than his stomach, as it is enough for him to take a few bites to straighten his back. If he cannot do it, then he may fill it with a third of his food, a third of his drink, and a third of his breath.” (Ibn Maajah) Hence, great caution must be taken with ensuring that our diets are composed of healthy, natural food, and minimizing processed foods.

From the mental standpoint, our attitude plays a great role in both our recovery from illness as well as how much we allow it to affect us. In a beautiful hadith of the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) he says, “Wondrous is the attitude of the believer, as there is good for him in every matter; and this is not the case for anyone except a believer. If he experiences something pleasant, he thanks Allah and it is good for him. And if he experiences something unpleasant, he shows patience and that is also good for him.” (Muslim) Hence, how we react to our illnesses plays a great role in how our illness will affect our life going forward.

And lastly, and just as important, is our spiritual approach to illness. It was narrated from the Messenger (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) that he said: “Treat your sick by means of charity.” (Narrated by Abu Dawood, at-Tabaraani, al-Bayhaqi and others, from a number of the Sahaabah. All its chains of narration are da‘eef (weak), but it was classed as a good (hasan) hadith by al-Albaani (may Allah have mercy on him) because of corroborating evidence in Saheeh at-Tirmidhi. It may be that some diseases happen as a result of a sin that the sick person committed, but when he, or his family, gives charity on his behalf, this sin is erased and so is the cause of the sickness. Alternately, good deeds are recorded for him because of the charity, so the sick person is revived thereby, and the pain or weakness of the sickness is reduced as a result. We often forget that everything that Allah does has good in it, for how many a person was humbled to their own benefit by illness, or brought to a new understanding because of their disease. Disease has resulted in many people repenting to Allah and thereby succeeding in the hereafter, so let us also consider this dimension of both the illness and how to approach it.