Prophetic Medicine: Blackseed

Narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet said, “There is no disease that Allah has created, except that He also has created its treatment.”[i]

Allah has given us all the answers that we need in this life. Some parts of the Qur’an and Sunnah have only just become understandable due to scientific progress over the past century in the Western world. While in the Muslim world attitudes towards infectious diseases has been around for centuries, but in the Western world only for a century or two.

For a long time the Muslim Ummah had an upper hand in many aspects of material life as well as in spiritual life. How was this progress possible? A lot of this was due to the nature of Islam and the emphasis spent on gaining beneficial ilm (knowledge) and not ilm that would be useless or time wasting. Another aid in the scientific world to add on to this aspect of beneficial ilm is the Prophetic Medicine.

What is Prophetic Medicine?

Prophetic Medicine tradition has come from the medicine and science left behind by the Prophet Muhammad. The hadeeth that began this article on blackseed is an example of the kind of traditions the Prophet left the Ummah with to use and learn from, and which there can be only growth. There are many ahadeeth reported by Bukhari, Muslim and others on various aids for medicinal purposes, such as:

Honey:

Narrated ‘Aisha:

The Prophet used to like sweet edible things and honey.[ii]

Cupping:

Narrated Ibn ‘Abbas:

The Prophet said, “Healing is in three things: cupping, a gulp of honey or cauterization, (branding with fire) but I forbid my followers to use cauterization (branding with fire).”[iii]

In this article we will discuss the benefits of just one of the Prophetic Medicines: Blackseed, as has been narrated by Khalid bin Sad:

We went out and Ghalib bin Abjar was accompanying us. He fell ill on the way and when we arrived at Medina he was still sick. Ibn Abi ‘Atiq came to visit him and said to us, “Treat him with black cumin. Take five or seven seeds and crush them (mix the powder with oil) and drop the resulting mixture into both nostrils, for ‘Aisha has narrated to me that she heard the Prophet saying, ‘This black cumin is healing for all diseases except As-Sam.’ Aisha said, ‘What is As-Sam?’ He said, ‘Death.”[iv]

Also narrated by Narrated Abu Huraira:

I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, “There is healing in black cumin for all diseases except death.”[v]

What is the beneficial aspects to blackseed? How can it be used?

Black seed has a variety of beneficial ways it can be used, which has expanded with the advancement of science. The Black seed is the common fennel flower plant (Nigella sativa) of the buttercup family. This herb grows to about 16-24 inches and has finely divided foliage with blue flowers.   From this plant, comes a small black seed, which is also known as the blessed seed or black seed, and some call it the Arabian seed because of its habitat.  The Black Seed plant is also known by other names, and they vary between places.  The Black Seed has been used for over two thousand years.  It has been said that the Black Seed should be used regularly because it has a cure for every disease except death.

A special oil is extracted from the seed which is used in the preparation of various medical formulas.  It has been used to treat bronchitis and coughs.  Also it has been used to help increase body tone, as a digestive tonic, to quell belching, stimulates excretion of urine, dissolves wind, quells colic pain and stomach-gas colic, expels worms, benefits some skin allergies, stimulates menstrual period, and increases the flow of breast milk.  If you add a few drops to coffee or tea it can help calm the nervous system, help pertussis, dry cough, asthma, and bronchial respiratory complaints. If you take the Black Seed oil unmixed or undiluted it can produce gripe, and irritate the digestive system.  The Black Seed acts as an expectorant by stimulating the body’s energy and helping it to recover from fatigue and dispiritedness.

The black seed of blessed seed has now been converted in to many tips of products for people to use it as. Some companies devote themselves completely to black seed and finding innovative ways in which to use it. You can take black seed as a daily dietary supplement to be used in a preventative way, it can be used as shampoo, or oils for the hair, taken as a tea, and even in body creams.

As Muslims we should always look to the Sunnah for our answers in life, and the Prophetic Medicine is a great place to start. This is an area untapped mostly by the Muslim community which should be studied more and lectured upon more by scholars so that we can implement this more in our lives. All parts of the sunnah should be vitally implemented. InshAllah this will encourage us to progress even within the medical field to follow the sunnah before we run off to a doctor for a prescription.

Wasalam.

[ii] Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 71, Number 586

[iii] Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 71, Number 584

[iv] Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 71, Number 591

[v] Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 71, Number 592

http://www.positive-action.net/al-yusra/natural_healing_from_the_sunnah.htm