I don’t know how your reply even relates to my post. As I explained, medical practice has improved tremendously over the past centuries, and in fact you claimed yourself that your clients should primarily follow their doctors. Thank you for the link to the ahadith (although when you copy-paste all these translations and commentaries into your websites you really should source them, including the translators); however, as people didn’t have any options besides cupping (and often more unpleasant things, it seems), it’s hardly surprising this was what was recommended back in the Prophet’s days (pbuh). We have better validated treatments now, as I’ve explained repeatedly.

The very commonly cited hadith about the angels advising the Prophet (pbuh) to use hijama seems to be from Sunan Ibn Majah (Book 31 Hadith 3477) and is classified as da’eef (weak). Just because it’s commonly cited (from what I’ve seen, mostly by people selling hijama), doesn’t mean it’s reliable or that it should be commonly cited.

Salam

salaam

1. “Dont waste your money.” This emotional argument has no merit here. Overzealous doctors say these same alarmist statements about vitamins, herbs and so on.

2. “Only qualified people.” Yes, and a medical doctor is not qualified to talk about the merits of hijamah, unless they themself have undergone the training. A good M.D. stays in their lane and understands how and where the alternative therapies fit into a comprehensive health care plan.

3. “Bruises”. This is inaccurate. The discolorations are not bruises. A bruise is from blunt trauma. Hijama does not injure people.

4. “Risk of infection from a cut.” Really? So, don’t donate blood because the needle prick could cause infection? Don’t use a diabetic blood sugar prick test because of risk of infection? Ban MMA and the professional sports industry as a whole, because of risk of infection? Come on..

5. Cancer stories. This is a can of worms. For each of your stories I have 3. Explain to me the 14 year old girl who did hijamah (and a bunch of other things) over the course of a year and survived leg amputation? Her tibia literally grew back. Her medical care team is amazed. Explain to me, my own uncle who was told he had 3 months to live – and its been 9 months since then? Explain to me how my friend’s mom’s tumor disappeared within 3 months after she went for umrah. Right here in Toronto, at Princess Margaret Hospital. “Placebo”? No, I say Allahu Akbar.

6. Hijama is not a miracle cure and should not be marketed as such. It has its scope.

7. The physician is the primary care provider and facilitates the diagnosis via testing. Would never advise a person to go “rogue” self-diagnose without any assistance from a physician.

salaam

Alhamdulillah for being here. Cupping is a sunnah practiced by the prophet and his companions, and great scholars of islaam over centuries. It is well accepted in Nigeria and I’m a Nigerian cupping therapist with tremendous success stories. Check out my latest interview on http://www.ahealth.co.uk.

Visit the website: http://www.alhijamah.com/sunnahpoints

Salam,

The scientific community (allopathic medicine or otherwise) is influenced by various schools and methods, including the Greek. Our understanding of medicine (and of our own limitations) has progressed a tremendous degree since the days of ancient Greece. Islamic scholarship has also been influenced by various schools and methods (including the Greek) as they collected and interpreted the narrations that came to make up our understanding of the sunnah. All scholarship is influenced to some degree or another by surrounding belief systems and their scholarly predecessors, and all scholarship adapts over time, for better or worse, depending on our own biases and competence at identifying the best evidence and interpreting it. It’s always an uphill struggle. I’m not aware of any existential crises.

None of us know the ghaib (considering that ghaib means the Unknown, it would be a contradiction in terms). God knows everything, including the things we don’t know (as well as the truth of what we erroneously think we know). We cannot quantify what ghaib is (except perhaps for things that are explicitly stated to be unknown to us, such as when Judgement Day will occur, etc.). What we see through the Hubble Space Telescope would have been ghaib to previous generations, and what future generations see is ghaib to us, and I’m sure many things will remain ghaib to humans until Judgement Day. Yet, had we not tried to investigate space or the world around us, we would not be aware of these ayat. It is the same with medicine.

Nothing happens without God’s will. No one is saying alternative therapies definitely don’t work; the point is there’s no evidence that they do work, or that they are “means to shiffa” in the first place. First of all, to identify shiffa or healing, you would have to identify what they are healing from (or at the very least identify the symptoms that improved). To lump all medical conditions into one group is sloppy, and the opposite of searching for signs from God.

Firearms will not have an effect in defending soldiers in a face-off with an invading army unless God wills it…but no one would suggest to meet firearms with swords, or call swords “sunnah” just because they was used in the Prophet’s day (pbuh). Certainly no one would suggest to meet arrows, catapults, or unknown weapons (as an analogy to different medical conditions) with swords. Now imagine someone says, “what gives anyone the right to deny that any sword, knife, slingshot, fist, foot, or broken glass can be the means to the protection of Allah (swt)? It’s tantamount to denying the attributes of Allah.” Do you see how this makes no sense (and veers into the realm of takfeer to boot)?

Anecdotes are not evidence, because they are heavily influenced by biases. (Remember that thousands of years of “anecdotal evidence”, also known as people saying stuff, convinced generations that there were numerous gods and idols and that these imaginary beings spoke to them…just because people believe something doesn’t mean it’s true). One of the main goals of (well designed) clinical trials is to minimize biases, and they often show that a treatment that was widely believed to be effective is actually not effective, or is less effective/more risky than a less known treatment, or as effective as a much cheaper treatment people could use instead. It’s important to identify these biases in order to make these distinctions and to better treat patients, rather than allowing them to live under the delusion that a particular treatment is effective when it’s not. Laziness in identifying better solutions is not good for anyone, except those who profit from ignorance.

Now to placebo effects (there’s a lot to say about them, but I’ll stick with the minimum here). Let’s say someone has cancer. They’re convinced that something with no evidence (e.g. “natural therapies”) will heal them, and so they get a placebo effect and feel better for awhile (more cheerful, less pain, etc.). Then they become increasingly ill, because placebo effects are transient. I have personally seen this happen, where a patient insisted she had previously cured her breast cancer by herbal treatments or some such thing, and refused to get any sort of approved treatment for the cancer that had landed her in the intensive care unit. She spent months suffering in the ICU, awake and aware but with a breathing tube, insisting that all she needed was natural treatments, getting more and more complications, until she died. Compare this with people who caught their breast cancer early on, got treated, and lived active lives for decades until they died of other causes. The placebo effect made her feel better for a long time, but eventually it caused great suffering that would have had a much better chance of being avoided had she followed supported treatments.

People often try out alternative therapies, either hijama or otherwise, before they seek medical help, or instead of it. I personally had a patient that used hijama repeatedly for a stroke, and only sought medical help months later, when he no longer had use of one side of his body, and when it was too late to get much help even from physical therapy. That’s the danger of peddling unfounded treatments as cures, based on the practices of people centuries ago (it’s not like the Prophet (pbuh) even invented hijama, it was something people already used).

If a patient wants to try a harmless “therapy” with no evidence of effectiveness because he or she sought medical help, followed it and the doctors said there was no hope, then they’re free to try these therapies; if they want to try harmless “therapies” that have no evidence of help or harm to following doctors’ instructions, no one would object (it’s their money if they want to waste it). But patients should know about this lack of evidence so they can make informed choices, not have the “therapies” marketed to them as miracle cures. They would be better off joining clinical trials in many cases.

Anyway, even something like hijama will lead to bruises which are not helpful, and if they cut the skin, there’s always the risk of infection, so why not pick something else? Why not just do ruqya, and have someone stroke their head and pray over them? Why pay for unsupported “therapies” rather than donate the money for research or some sadaqa jariya (continuing charity) if they’re seeking barakah (blessing)?

Lastly, there is a difference between censorship and being careful whom you trust to inform your readers. I’m assuming PM doesn’t want to mislead their readership, so I definitely recommend doing due diligence and getting qualified people to discuss such topics. This reminds me of when Islamophobes write articles containing all sorts of easily disproved lies about Islam, and people feel the need to argue the truth in comments. It’s basic due diligence, not censorship, to tell the Islamophobes to first show their qualifications and provide their evidence before publishing the articles. It’s much harder correcting misinformation once it spreads.

Salam

I would love to learn online . Plz tell me more about it.

Is it safe to do on our own ?

I’ve never heard that. And even if there were such a hadith, and it were considered reliable and mutawatir (with multiple intact chains of narrators), it’s one thing for the Companions to do something such as cupping that may have had some effect (even if it turns out to be entirely placebo) at a time where there were no other options, and an entirely different thing for us to do it when there are options that actually have been shown to work.

And in cases when there are no available therapies, patients should be well aware that cupping or whatever unproven treatment they want to use has not been shown to be effective; then it’s their prerogative to do it anyway or not. When you watch ads from pharmaceutical companies, they are obligated to disclose potential side effects (even when the drug was proved to be an effective treatment for a particular condition after years in clinical trials), but alternative therapies are often not well regulated and anyone can say anything about them, in ignorance or for profit.