This article complements another article: Ḥāfiḍh Ibn Ḥajar, Shaykh al-Albānī and Shaykh al-Luḥaydān: Prayer, Remembrance and Pure Reliance in Preservation of Health and Repelling Illness. In his speech below, Shaykh al-Albānī provides more insight into the matter, regarding the detail he provided about reliance and taking the means.
Shaykh al-Albānī (رحمه الله) also said:[1]
In relation to reliance upon Allāh, the issue has detail to it, in reality, it is a must that you know this detail, in truth, because it is important.
Reliance (tawakkul) upon Allāh, its ruling is that it is obligatory, a foundation from the foundations of the Sharīʿah, it is necessary. However, alongside reliance one must take the means, as we have alluded to just now.
However, speech about the means has detail to it.
Some of these means are definitive, in that they are a treatment and cure [for certain]. Then it is obligatory to take them, and we can give a very clear example. A man whose blood vessel has been cut, it is not befitting that he say: “I am relying upon Allāh.” And he does not bandage the wound and tie (squeeze) the vein, and he relies upon Allāh. This is an ignoramus. What was said by the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم), “Tie it (the camel) and trust in Allāh”[2] is said to him. So he puts a bandage and ties the vein. This is definitively known to prevent the flow of blood which if it continued, the end would be death for him.
Then there are medicines from the second level, the one who takes them has overwhelming belief that he will benefit from taking them.[3] So here it is good to take them.
Then there are medicines in the third level, there is no overwhelming belief that they will benefit. This type is not good to take, and this is where reliance comes in. This, in reality through my specific experience and my specific knowledge.
Today people are most in need of this because I know that people, in the path of medicinal treatment are attached to physical medicinal treatments, even if it is through mere presumptions... so here is where reliance takes place. Also appropriate here is what I mentioned just now that a person uses the Prophetic spiritual medicine.
Thus, reliance upon Allāh is not absolute, but it has various situations.
In the first situation [described above] it is obligatory to take the means alongside reliance.
In the second situation it is better to take the means because there is overwhelming belief in its benefit and reliance is necessary [along with it].
The third situation, it is not permissible to take that means because it is imaginary (mawhūm), and it is a means that resembles the means which the People of Jāhiliyyah used to take and they would presume goodness from it, such as omens for example.
In fact, the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) has placed within this [category]—meaning the third category which is not good to take as a means, and the Messenger (عليه السلام) preferred to make pure reliance in this situation—when you ask your brother Muslim to supplicate for you, that Allāḥ (عز وجل), meaning that you ask him to make ruqyah. So here, the Messenger (عليه السلام) preferred reliance over seeking ruqyah.
This is what has come explicitly in his saying (عليه السلام) in the ḥadīth of the two Ṣaḥīḥs, when the Messenger (عليه السلام) said: “Seventy thousand from my ummah will enter Paradise without reckoning, their faces are like the moon on the night it is full”, this is in a long story which we have mentioned on occasions, then he (عليه السلام) said: “They are the ones”—the seventy thousand—"They are the ones who will enter Paradise without reckoning and punishment, their faces are like the moon on the night it is full.” Who are they? “They are the ones who do not seek ruqyah, nor cauterize [their wounds] and nor do they harbour omens, but upon their Lord do they place trust.”[4]
So alongside belief in omens (ṭiyarah, superstition) being from the habits of Jāhiliyyah which the Messenger (عليه السلام) invalidated, then [in this ḥadīth] is also a description of those [who will enter Paradise without reckoning and punishment], that they do not harbour omens, so he connected omens with seeking ruqyah.
Absence of harbouring omens is an obvious matter to the Muslim because belief in omens is from the affairs of Jāhiliyyah. However, that is not the case in what is apparent, at first glance, for a Muslim to ask his righteous Muslim brother for ruqyah and supplication so that Allāh relieves you of the affliction that is with you. They are not equal for example, but the Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم) linked ruqyah, or seeking ruqyah in the most correct sense in terms of it negating the legislated reliance, with belief in omens.
The reason for this as some of the investigators have corroborated is that when you ask your Muslim brother for supplication that He [Allāh] may relieve you, then you do not know if this supplication is answered or not. This is an assumed matter.
So there, the Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is saying to you, rely upon Allāh, and depend upon Allāh to relieve you and cure you. And alongside this, he brought the three affairs that negate reliance, [including] treatment through cauterization with fire, so he said: “They are the ones who do not seek ruqyah and do not cauterize…” despite cauterization being from the best of what you treat yourselves with he said (عليه السلام) in some authentic ḥadīths.
So the reason here for negating the legislated (i.e. permitted) [act] of seeking ruqyah is that you depend on a means that is not likely [ghayr rājiḥ][5]. Whereas here [in the case of cauterization] the means is likely [in its benefit], but it involves use of fire in which there is punishment, “And no one punishes with fire except the Lord of the fire.”[6]
Hence, when the Prophet (عليه السلام) mentioned, in the ḥadīth of al-Bukhārī, “The best of what you treat yourselves with are three...” and he mentioned cauterization with them, he said, “But I prohibit my nation from cauterization”, for this reason.
The essence of the speech is that reliance must be connected with taking the highly probable means[7] let alone those means which are definitive.
Notes
There are tremendous benefits from this speech of this great Imām of the Sunnah in the contemporary era:
01 The issue of trust and reliance (tawakkul) is not absolute, but has detail to it when it comes to taking and abandoning the means (asbāb). This is because the means are not all at the same level. Not taking care here to distinguish between the levels of the means will obscure the difference between what is genuine reliance and what is other than it.
02 From those means are those which are definitive, they are not under any dispute, and they are known through repeat experience, observation and empirical knowledge to be effective. This includes those affairs which are from the daily experience of everybody, such as bandaging and sealing a cut in a major blood vessel and what is similar. So here it is obligatory to take this treatment as a means, as part of reliance upon Allāh. To not do so is foolish.
03 Then there are those affairs, the second category, in which there is overwhelming belief that they are likely to be successful in a person, meaning that their sucess is likely, most probable. This is because there is evidence for them, but not like the evidence and knowledge in the first category. Here there are lots of useful medications and supplements which have been demonstrated to be of benefit in either cure or relieving symptoms. So it is recommended to take them, and this goes along with reliance upon Allāh.
04 Then the third category, of which there is an abundance in the modern era, due to excessive commercialisation and the domination of medicine by financial interests.
So this category, is based largely on assumptions and the evidence is weak or non-existent, so it is really based on presumptions. Shaykh al-Albānī declared this category as impermissible and he connected it to the issue of omens, which is superstition (errors in causation).
05 With respect to this third category, Shaykh al-Albānī (رحمه الله) pointed out—treating it as an important matter that Muslims must embrace—that they must turn instead to pure reliance and to resort to the Prophetic spiritual medicine instead. This is prayer, supplication and remembrance, which are independent means in themselves, alongside trust and reliance upon Allāh.
06 Shaykh al-Albānī explained how the Sunnah has come with this meaning and has given examples to illustrate it. He refers to the ḥadīth of the 70,000 who enter Paradise without reckoning or punishment. In this ḥadīth the Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم) linked two examples with the issue of omens (superstition).
The first is seeking ruqyah, not ruqyah in itself, but the act of seeking ruqyah (al-istirqāʾ). Here, it is discouraged and not favoured because of the reason given, it is not known if Allāh will answer the supplication of that person. Also because it leads to misconceptions, in that a person operates upon the presumptious belief that that the person he asks for ruqyah is blessed and that his supplication is answered. This is just presumption.
One can see how this is connected to the issue of omens, because omens are superstition, which relates to errors in causation. So these presumptions in the mind of this person comprise errors in the matter of causation. He is holding presumptions which are not true.
The second example given by the Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم) was cauterization. The angle why it is unfavoured, even though it is a permitted legislated means is because it involves the use of fire, and is a type of punishment. Since only Allāh punishes with fire, then it is best to avoid that.[8]
07 Finally, the Shaykh summarised the entire affair and said, “that reliance must be connected with taking the highly probable means let alone those means which are definitive.”
May Allāh reward the Shaykh for this valuable insight.
Footnotes
1. Casette: Mutafarriqāt al-Albānī (no. 304)—Source.2. Refer to Silsilah al-Ṣaḥīḥah of al-Albānī (no. 1068) who declared it ḥasan.
3. And this overwhelming belief returns back to evidence.
4. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (no. 6472).
5. The word rājiḥ here means most likely to occur. In the issue of ruqyah, no one has knowledge whether Allāh will respond to the supplication or not, and as such this means is not rājiḥ, rather there is presumption in it.
6. Refer to Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd of Shaykh al-Albānī (no. 2673) and it is ṣaḥīḥ.
7. Meaning those for which there is strong and justified belief that they will be successful.
8. Elsewhere, the Shaykh explained that if a doctor advises that a wound should be treated with cauterization rather than left, because it will bring more harm, then one can do so.