Facing Sickness: Etiquette, Blessings, and Spiritual State

1. ALI 137 Session 3 Sahifa Sajjadiyyah – 3 Du`as Jamadi I 29, 1439 June 4, 2008

2. Today’s lesson • Aayat 4:43 with translation • Hadith from Ma‘sumeen (a) on falling sick • Etiquette of visiting a sick person • How to face sickness? • Divine blessings during sickness (Sahifa 15: 4 & 5) • Psychological and spiritual state at the time of sickness (Sahifa 15: 6 & 7) • Sunni sources on sickness & Quotes

3. Sickness is the first reason for doing Tayammum (4:43) • يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ لاَ تَقْرَبُواْ الصَّلاَةَ وَأَنتُمْ سُكَارَى حَتَّىَ تَعْلَمُواْ مَا تَقُولُونَ وَلاَ جُنُبًا إِلاَّ عَابِرِي سَبِيلٍ حَتَّىَ تَغْتَسِلُواْ وَإِن كُنتُم مَّرْضَى أَوْ عَلَى سَفَرٍ أَوْ جَاء أَحَدٌ مِّنكُم مِّن الْغَآئِطِ أَوْ لاَمَسْتُمُ النِّسَاء فَلَمْ تَجِدُواْ مَاء فَتَيَمَّمُواْ صَعِيدًا طَيِّبًا فَامْسَحُواْ بِوُجُوهِكُمْ وَأَيْدِيكُمْ إِنَّ اللّهَ كَانَ عَفُوًّا غَفُورًا

4. Translation of 4:43 • O you who have faith! Do not approach prayer when you are intoxicated, [not] until you know what you are saying, nor [enter mosques] in the state of ritual impurity —except while passing through— until you have washed yourselves. But if you are sick or on a journey, or any of you has come from the toilet, or you have touched women, and you cannot find water, then make your ablution on clean ground and wipe a part of your faces and your hands. Indeed God is all-excusing, all-forgiving.

5. Hadiths from the Ma‘sumeen (a)on falling sick • Holy Prophet (s): when a Muslim gets sick, Allah writes for him the best deeds he used to perform during his good health, and the sins fall down the way leaves fall from a tree. • As-Sadiq (a): the night fever is expiation for [sins] before it and after it. • Al-Baqir (a): keeping awake at night on account of sickness is better than the worship of a year. • As-Sadiq (a): the night headache reduces/diminishes every mistake except the major sins.

6. Etiquette of visiting a sick person • Stay for short time, except if requested by the sick • Ask about his/her condition • Pray: اَللهُمَّ اشفِهِ بِشَفائِكَ، وَدَاوِهِ بِدَوَائِكَ، وَعَافِهِ مِنْ بَلاَئِكَ • Put hand on his arm /forehead & recite al-Hamd 7 times or 70 times. • Do not eat what would harm him & what he covets • Avoid things that would irritate him or cause grief • Present him with gifts, especially fruits or perfume • Request the sick to pray for you. As-Sadiq (a): Du`as of 3 are accepted: Haji, warrior, & sick

7. How should we face sickness? • Practice utmost patience for sickness is accompanied with great divine reward (thawāb). • Thank Allah (swt) for He has tried you with a lesser sickness & for allowing you to enjoy good health for long • Do not complain, especially to say: “Why me?” • Conceal the sickness for 3 days; then inform the believers about it and give permission to visit the sick • Do not haste in taking medicine or referring to a doctor. Rather give your body time to resist. • Stay away from all those things that would harm you. • Give charity hoping to get cured and warding off calamities. • In the presence of believers attest to the belief in the usul ad-dīn and belief in other creeds of Islam • Have a will ready for one third of you estate, and appoint an upright and a trustful person over your minor (children)

8. Divine bounties in sickness – (Sahifa 15:4) • Or the time of illness        through which You put me to the test        and bestow upon me favors:                1) lightening of the offenses                               that weigh down my back,                2) purification of the evil deeds                                  into which I have plunged,                3) incitement to reach for repentance,                4) reminder of the erasure of misdeeds                                   through ancient favor;

9. Divine bounties in sickness – (Sahifa 15:5) • and, through all that, • what the two writers write for me:        blameless acts,                    1) which no heart had thought,                    2) no tongue had uttered,                    3) and no limb had undertaken, • rather, as Your bestowal of bounty upon me • and the beneficence of Your benefaction toward me

10. Psychological & spiritual state during sickness (Sahifa 15: 6) • O Allah,       bless Muhammad and his Household, • make me love what You have approved for me • make easy for me what You have sent down upon me • purify me of the defilement of what I have sent ahead • erase the evil of what I have done beforehand • let me find the sweetness of well-being • let me taste the coolness of safety

11. Psychological & spiritual state during sickness (Sahifa 15: 6 & 7) • [O Allah] and appoint for me • 1) a way out from my illness to Your pardon, • 2) transformation of my infirmity into Your forbearance, • 3) escape from my distress to Your refreshment, • 4) and safety from this hardship in Your relief! • You are gratuitously bountiful in beneficence,   ever gracious in kindness, the Generous, the Giver,   Possessor of majesty and munificence!

12. Islam on sickness – Sunni sources  1) O Allah, O Lord of Mankind, remove the affliction and send down cure and healing, for no one can cure but You; so cure in such a way that no trace of illness is left. 2) I seek refuge and protection in the august might and power of Allah from the pain and illness I am suffering from and I’m afraid of. 3) Repeat and meditate on some of the beautiful Names of Allah: E.g. Ya rahamanu;Ya raheem; Ya shaafi, (O the Most Merciful one, O the Healer and curer). Visiting http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/427/ Islamic Medicine & other articles: www.islamtheabsolutetruth.com/med.html; www.crescentlife.com/wellness/health_and_sickness.htm

13. Quotes on sickness • In time of sickness the soul collects itself anew. Latin Proverb • Sickness shows us what we are. Latin Proverbs • . . .through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest. Dorothy Canfield Fisher • There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonics so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow. O. Swett Marden