What is the ruling on treating an illness with a medicine that contains a percentage of alcohol?

The questioner : The questioner asks: What is the ruling on drinking a cough medicine that is prepared with a ten percent alcohol content?

The Shaykh : First, it must be known that a medicine for something forbidden cannot exist, because Allah did not forbid a forbidden thing except because of its harm, and harm cannot be a benefit. For this reason, it came in the hadith: So whatever is forbidden, it is not permissible to treat with it at all, whether that forbidden thing is a drink, food, or a sound from a flute or a musical instrument, as some people claim. They say we treat the sick with soft, gentle music that delights them and brings them joy, and then their body becomes healthy and sound. We say that it is absolutely impossible for health to be found in something forbidden.
And even if we assume the validity of this claim and accept it, we say to the one who tried to cure the patient with the voice of the entertainer, meaning the entertainments: Even if you cured his body, you have made his heart sick, and the sickness of the heart is more severe than the sickness of the body, because the sickness of the heart leads to the loss of both this world and the Hereafter. As for the sickness of the body, if it leads a person to death, the man has only lost the life of this world, which is worse than the Hereafter and less excellent. So when this principle becomes clear—that it is not permissible for anyone to treat himself with something forbidden because there is no cure in it—the answer regarding this drink becomes clear, which the brother mentioned has a ten percent alcohol content. Because this is a high percentage, and it appears that it will have an effect on this drink. So we say that it is not permissible to treat with it, because this is a high percentage. However, if the medicine, whether it is a paste, a liquid, or pills, contains a negligible percentage of alcohol that has no effect, then there is no harm in it and it is permissible to take it. Because the scholars said that if khamr (intoxicants) is mixed with something permissible and its effect does not appear in it, then it becomes permissible. Their evidence for this is what is narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in his saying: If what predominates in its taste, color, or smell is impurity that occurs in it. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) made it clear that the mixing of a pure thing with an impure thing has no effect unless the impure thing has an effect in this mixing. Likewise, the forbidden and the permissible. So based on this, we say that if the percentage of alcohol in the medicine is high enough to reach the degree of intoxication, and at that point the prohibition of the small amount that does not intoxicate, while its large amount does, is from the perspective of blocking the means (sadd al-dhara'i') and the paths leading to the forbidden. For this reason, a person should understand the meaning of the words of Allah and His Messenger well so that he does not err in the ruling, because error in the ruling is either from ignorance, or from poor understanding, or from bad intention; it does not go beyond these three causes. So a person should be aware and understanding of what Allah the Exalted intends in His speech and what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) intends in his speech.

The questioner : It is all an argument. The right of the small amount, the right of the small amount, the right of the small amount.

The Shaykh : Hmm?

The questioner : I say, you mentioned that it is small, and what is the right of the small amount?

The Shaykh : The small amount that does not intoxicate is forbidden.

The questioner : No, no, in the medicine, in the eye medicine.

The Shaykh : This percentage is up to the doctors. If they say that this percentage of alcohol affects the medicine, then it is prohibited. It might be, for example, a two percent ratio or something similar. I am not able to determine the percentage that has an effect. Then, the effect of the alcohol might be present relative to the antidote it was mixed with. It might be, for example, that two percent has an effect because the antidote it was mixed with has little resistance, and it might be that three percent and five percent have no effect because the antidote has a strength that prevents the effect. Yes.