I had posted a while ago, that alhamdulilah, I had the oppurtunity to pose a few questions to what is considered to be the Islamic World's (and totally world respected in the feild of medicine also, which is quite an accomplishment, mashaAllah) leading authority on medicine and Islam. Alhamdulilah, he happens to be a friend of my old boss (I just recently took time off from working due to my pereptual morning sickness). Hijab is a subject I am pretty knowledgeable on I am told;), enough to engage most of the Sheikhs and Imams that I have been introduced to, but medicine is something I am I am generally pretty clueless on. MashaAllah and alhamdulilah for this man's knowledge of both the science of medecine and Islam.I am particularily thankful, because this question was my own, and it was something that was bothering me about my faith. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I was doubting Allah subhanahu wa t'ala or anything, but there was a hadith I found particularily weird. So weird in fact, I was hesitent to believe it was even sahih. Which was my first question to the Sheikh. I didn't want to be like some Muslims who pick and choose what they want of Islam by going "oh, I don't believe that hadith was authentic."
My question: Aslaam alaykom brother. Can you tell me if the hadith "The Prophet Mohamed, peace and blessings be upon him, said, 'If a fly falls into one of your containers [of food or drink] immearse it completely before removing it, for under one of its wings is a disease, and other the other, a cure.'" [Sahih Al Bukhari-Narrated by Abu Hurayra and Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri] is Sahih, and if there is any medical evidence to corroborate this?"
His answer, was, of course it was indeed Sahih/authentic.
Duh, I did kind of suspect that, knowing it was IN Sahih Al Bukhari, but something as weird as actually dipping the fly into your food before taking it out was just too weird for me to understand without science. I mean flies hang around poop and rotten meat so why would you ever want to keep them in your food any longer than them grazing it?
See, sometimes, I have difficulty accepting the beauty of Islam, when something is strange or difficult, until Allah subhanahu wa t'ala makes known the beauty of it to me. This is often my failing as a Muslimah I guess.
And YES, there IS scientific evidence to back this hadith up. Amazing, subhanAllah, that all this has just been discovered recently, but Rasoolulah had told us all about it 1400 years ago (ya know, before microscopes). It was only in the last hundred years that people outside of Islam knew that flies actually carried diseases, and it wasn't until medical student Joanne Clarke and her colleagues at the Depatment of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University began to ponder about the flies' amazing immunity, that proof of the flies' use as an antidote was confirmed to Western science in the production of new antibiotics.
Apparently, while the fly does carry parasitic pathogens that can cause diseases such as malaria, cholera, and typhoid, it also carries parasitic bacteriophagic fungi capable of fighting the germs of all these diseases. So it is, indeed, the disease, and the cure. SubhanAllah.
The scientists apparently tested a bunch of species of flies when they were in their larvae stage, and adult stage. Most species had antibiotic properties even as larvae AND ALL did, as adult flies. These properties existed on the surface of the flie. The researches managed to extract the antibiotic from the flies by immearsing them in liquid. Then the antibiotic was tested on harmful disease pathogens E. Coli, and Staph infection. It was successful in combating these diseases.
Neat, no?
