“ButIwasdesperate”—scholars’answersonforbiddentreatments

Three real questions put to the scholars, with their answers — including the one so many people carry quietly: what if I already did it?

1. “Doesn’t necessity make the forbidden permissible?”

Question: Please explain the maxim “necessities render the forbidden permissible.”

Sheikh Muhammad ibn Salih al-‘Uthaymin answered: The meaning is that when a person is driven to something forbidden in a way that the necessity is actually relieved by it, that forbidden thing becomes permissible. For example: a man starving, with nothing before him but carrion — if he eats it he survives, if he does not he dies. We say: it is lawful for him to eat, for he is in true necessity. The same if he had nothing but pork.

But as for medicine — some people imagine the maxim covers it, and that one may treat himself with the haram when he feels he “must”. This is an error. Necessity is never certainly relieved by a medicine: how many people take a beneficial medicine and gain nothing from it; and how many leave medicine altogether and Allah cures them without it. A medicine is not like the morsel that certainly keeps a starving man alive — so the maxim does not apply to it.

Source: the official website of Sheikh Ibn ‘Uthaymin.

2. “A traditional healer includes donkey’s milk in the remedy”

Question: Some women take their children to a woman who treats illnesses with traditional Arab medicine — herbs and the like — but sometimes the treatment includes the milk of a donkey, given to the sick child to drink. Is it permissible to give the child this?

Sheikh Ibn ‘Uthaymin answered: It is not permissible for anyone to treat with the milk of donkeys, for it is forbidden — and Allah has not placed the cure of His servants in what He has forbidden them. Had there been good for them in it, He would not have forbidden it. Nor is it permissible for the women practitioners to mix medicine with any forbidden substance; in doing so they are sinning, and they must fear Allah and keep the forbidden out of their remedies.

Source: the official website of Sheikh Ibn ‘Uthaymin.

3. “My mother bathed in blood on a soothsayer’s instructions — is there an expiation?”

Question: My mother was ill, and she went to many hospitals without benefit. Finally she went to a soothsayer, who told her to bathe in goat’s blood — and, not knowing the ruling, she did. Is any expiation due from us? What is it?

Sheikh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Baz answered: It is not permissible to go to soothsayers, astrologers, sorcerers or any of the charlatans, nor to ask them anything, nor to believe them — it is among the greatest of major sins. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Whoever goes to a fortune-teller and asks him about anything, no prayer is accepted from him for forty nights” (Muslim); and: “Whoever goes to a soothsayer or fortune-teller and believes what he says has disbelieved in what was sent down upon Muhammad ﷺ” (the Sunan, authentic chain); and: “He is not of us who works sihr or has it worked for him, or soothsays or has it done for him, or reads omens or has them read for him; and whoever goes to a soothsayer and believes what he says has disbelieved in what was sent down upon Muhammad ﷺ.”

As for bathing in blood: it is an obvious evil and forbidden, for treatment with impurities is not allowed. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Allah has sent down the disease and the remedy, and made for every disease a remedy — so seek treatment, but do not treat with the haram” (Abu Dawud); and: “Allah has not placed your cure in what He has forbidden you.”

What is due from your mother is repentance to Allah — sincere tawbah, and never returning to the like of what she did. Whoever repents truthfully, Allah accepts their repentance: “And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed” (al-Nur 24:31). Sincere repentance means: remorse over the sin that passed; leaving it and pulling out of it; and a truthful resolve never to return — out of exalting Allah, love of Him, hope in His reward and fear of His punishment. And if the sin involved the right of another person, a fourth condition: restoring that right or being released of it. There is no “expiation” payment beyond this — sincere repentance is itself the way back, and Allah is the One whose help is sought.

Source: Majallat al-Da‘wah issue 1312 (17/4/1413 AH); Majmu‘ Fatawa wa Maqalat, vol. 9.

What these three answers give you

• “I had no choice” does not open the door to haram medicine — necessity applies to the starving man’s morsel, not to remedies whose benefit is never certain.
• A remedy is judged by its ingredients, not its packaging: “traditional” or “herbal” does not sanctify what is in the bottle.
• And if you have already been to a fake healer or done what they told you: the door back is not payment, ritual or despair — it is sincere repentance, and it is open.