Explaining the importance of combining faith in revelation with empirical science.

The Shaykh : Before I answer the full question, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Muslim doctor should, just as he values the knowledge he has acquired through the experimental method—which, unfortunately, the disbelieving Europeans preceded us in—value even more the knowledge he has believed in, which is revealed from the heavens. When that is the case, there is no obstacle for the Muslim to combine his faith in revelation, or revealed knowledge, with his faith in experimental knowledge. If he perceives any apparent contradiction between the two, the way to resolve it is not to reject one in favor of the other, but to reconcile them as much as we are able, because true knowledge never contradicts true experience. It is perhaps appropriate that I give a quick example: There is a hadith in "Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim": Therefore, it is not permissible for a Muslim to rush to deny this hadith, because it has been established for him through experience, of which there is no doubt or ambiguity, that contagion exists. Contagion is tangible even in things other than humans and animals; it exists even in plants and greenery and the like. For example, if you place a rotten onion among sound onions, the rot quickly spreads from that one to the others. This is a fact that cannot be denied, let alone denied by the revelation from the heavens, to which no falsehood comes from before or behind. So, when we are presented with such a hadith, and we have studied in medicine that there is contagion and that all measures are taken to prevent the transfer of contagion from the afflicted to the healthy, we must think in this case and find a meaning for this hadith that we have lost due to our ignorance, either of the hadiths of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), or even of our Arabic language, of which we Arabs have become strangers. "No contagion" does not mean that a person can understand "no contagion" absolutely, as if someone said... previously. We know, for example, the famous saying: "There is no young man but 'Ali, and no sword but Dhu al-Fiqar." Is it true that there is no young man but 'Ali? No, it is not true; there are many young men. But here, the "no" does not negate the genus, but negates perfection. There is no perfectly young man in terms of youth. Do you see what that means? Is it on the model of our saying "There is no man in the house," meaning no contagion at all, or does it mean the negation of contagion with a restricted attribute, like the attribute we understand from the Arab saying "There is no young man but 'Ali"? Here, the investigation from the jurisprudential and hadith perspectives leads to the answer that the hadith does not contradict knowledge, specifically medical knowledge which has established contagion. Rather, it confirms and establishes contagion, at a time when some people understand it to deny it. The reason is that we took this phrase from the hadith and did not memorize the complete hadith, which would help us understand the hadith correctly. The hadith in "the two Sahihs" is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), when he said: . A man said: "O Messenger of Allah, I see sound camels enter among the leper camels and they become infected!" He said to him (peace and blessings be upon him): When we read the hadith in its completeness and look at the position of the Messenger (peace be upon him) in action and speech, in action when the Bedouin said: "I see with my own eyes that the sound camels, which are beautiful in form like gold, are entered among by the leper camel and it infects them," what was the position of the Messenger (peace be upon him) regarding this claim made by this man? Did he deny it and turn back to say to him: "No contagion, no contagion"? No, but as I said, the action here was that he affirmed it and did not deny it, but he followed his action with a saying, or a statement, saying to him: ; So here we understand that the Arabs had a pre-Islamic view, and this is not strange given their pre-Islamic ignorance. They believed that contagion spreads or transfers by itself and its own nature. And I think that many doctors, I do not say disbelieving doctors, and there may be similar cases among Muslims, have fallen into this same pre-Islamic ignorance. Doctors think that by its nature, contagion transfers, so they guard against mixing with the person afflicted with a contagious disease with all caution and take all measures in that regard. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) here drew the attention of that Bedouin to two facts. The first fact is that contagion, as you see it, is a real fact, but the matter is not as you think, that it spreads by itself. The proof is that this first camel, where did the contagion spread to it from? It cannot be said from a camel before it and a camel before that, because that leads to an infinite regress, and infinite regress is invalid, especially if the man is a Muslim. Likewise, the Bedouin who believed in Allah and His Messenger will answer his statement (peace be upon him): "So who infected the first one?" Allah is the one who infected the first one. So the one who infected the first one is the one who infects the second, the third, the hundredth, the thousandth, and the millionth. Therefore, the intended meaning of the hadith is: No contagion by itself. But by the command, decree, and will of Allah, this is a fixed fact in this hadith itself, because it denied the contagion that the Arabs claimed spreads by itself, while the contagion that spreads by the command and will of Allah, the hadith established it, and the Messenger (peace be upon him) confirmed that in more than one authentic hadith. This is, in reality, one of the virtues of Islam by which it is distinguished from all other religions, in that it brought specific medical facts to the illiterate nation that did not read or write, and the specialized scholars in the study of medicine were not able to discover them except in this era or shortly before it. The Messenger (peace be upon him) said, in confirmation of this precise meaning which he drew attention to in the previous hadith, that there is contagion by the will of Allah. He said (peace be upon him) in "Sahih al-Bukhari": , which means: Take the means and rely on the Lord of lords. Then he came with a wonderful command, which I think is also a recent discovery by doctors regarding this matter. He said (peace and blessings be upon him) in a hadith narrated by Imam al-Bukhari and Muslim in "their two Sahihs" from the hadith of 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf (may Allah be pleased with him) that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) left Madinah as a warrior to Sham. When he reached a place on the way, news came to him that the plague is ahead of you. 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) ordered 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas to call the Muhajireen and have them gather with him. When they gathered, he presented this news to them that the plague is ahead of us. What is your opinion? Do we continue our journey or do we return to our city? He said: "They differed with him, and he said, as if in some irritation: 'Get away from me,'" because they did not agree. Then he ordered Ibn 'Abbas to call the Ansar, and they also gathered. He consulted them in the matter as well. They differed with him. He said to them as well: "Disperse from me." Then he ordered him to call the men of the Conquest, the elders of Quraysh who embraced Islam on the day of the Conquest. They gathered, and their opinion was unified. They agreed to advise him to return from where he came and not to throw these nobles of the Companions, the followers of the Messenger (peace be upon him), into destruction. So he decided to return. A man from the distinguished Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him), indeed he was one of the ten promised Paradise, namely Abu 'Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah, stopped him on his way and said: "O 'Umar, are you fleeing from the decree of Allah?" He said: "Yes, we flee from the decree of Allah to the decree of Allah." And this is a profound wisdom that demolishes the misguidance of the doctrine of compulsion. He said: "We flee from the decree of Allah to the decree of Allah." Then he said to him: "What if you had livestock in a valley between two banks, would you graze your sheep in the fertile bank of the valley or in the barren bank?" He said: "No, in the fertile bank." Meaning one side of the valley is green and the other is dry, so you take the sheep or camels. "Do you graze them in which of the two banks, the green one or the dry one?" He said naturally: "In the green bank." He said: "If you graze them in the green bank, it is by the decree of Allah, and if you graze them in the dry bank, it is also by the decree of Allah." Before he finished his speech, 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf came and said: "I have news from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." He said: "What is it?" He said: "I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say: So he announced and ordered to set out. The point of this hadith is that the Messenger (peace be upon him) established in this hadith what is called today medical quarantine, and this is one of the strongest proofs that Islam affirms the existence of contagion. So if we hear his statement: we should understand it in a way that does not contradict not only medicine, but also the other texts with which medicine is in complete agreement. So if there are some conditions, meaning we are forced to say that they must be treated, we must look to ensure that the treatment is in a way that conforms to the Shari'ah and does not contradict it, because we are still, as He said, Blessed and Exalted is He, and we are still at His statement, Exalted is He: