Please explain the seemingly contradictory texts with regards to illnesses

Question:

Please explain the contradictory texts with regards to illnesses.

Answer:

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

As-salāmu ‘alaykum wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh.

Verses of the Qur’ān and the texts of the Aḥādīth discuss the concept of plagues, diseases and their transmission.  Whilst some texts exhibit a message of Tawḥīd and an understanding that diseases can only transmit with the permission of Allah, other texts encourage adopting precautionary measures to safeguard oneself from disease.  Consider the following:

Allah Ta`ālā states:
“And if Allah touches you with harm, none can remove it but He, and if He touches you with good, then He is Able to do all things.” (Qur’ān 6:17)

Allah Ta`ālā said about the magic of Hārūt and Mārūt:
“But they do not harm anyone through it except by permission of Allah.” (Qur’ān 2:102)

The Prophet ṣalallahu `alayhi wasallam said:
“Diseases are not intrinsically contagious.” (ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī)[1]

Despite the above nuṣūs and understanding, the following has also been narrated:

“If you hear that it (plague) has broken out in a land, do not go to it; but if it breaks out in a land where you are present, do not go out escaping from it.” (ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī)[2]

“Flee from the leper as you would flee from a lion.” (ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī)[3]

“Do not put a sick one (animal) with a healthy one (animal)” (ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī)[4]

In another narration, a Bedouin got up and said, “Don’t you see how camels on the sand look like deer but when a mangy camel mixes with them, they all get infected with mange?” On that the Prophet ṣalallahu `alayhi wasallam said, “Then who conveyed the (mange) disease to the first camel?”[5]

It has also been reported in the Sunan of Abu Dawūd that the Prophet ṣalallahu `alayhi wasallam himself took the hand of a leper and ate with him from the same plate.[6]

The Muḥaddithūn have given many answers to the two types of texts, some of them being: 

1)    The texts which negate the transmission of diseases are addressed to those with strong faith strengthening their belief further that only that which is pre-ordained by Allah for them can affect them.  They understand the reality that Allah alone is in charge of the disease.  The texts which instruct one to stay away from those with diseases and plagued areas are addressed to those with weak faith.  It is possible that if they contract the disease, their belief will change thinking it is proximity with a patient which caused the illness.[7] 

2)    Texts negating the transmission of diseases were to falsify the pre-islamic beliefs that diseases themselves have innate ability to spread.   Hence, the Prophet ṣalallahu `alayhi wasallam negated their beliefs by stating diseases are not intrinsically contagious.  The other texts such as the Prophet ṣalallahu `alayhi wasallam eating with a leper were to practically show and teach the people the Aqīdah that Allah alone governs the transmission of diseases.

3)    The texts which instruct one to flee from a leper and to avoid plagued hit areas were instructing the believers to avoid those means and causes which Allah commonly uses to reach an effect.  Hence such texts acknowledge the existence of causes but at the same time, the other texts prove that such means have no independent power, rather, Allah is the one who brings in them an effect.[8]      

Ibn Ḥajar in Fatḥ al-Bārī, Mullā `Alī al-Qārī in Mirqāt al-Mafātīh, Ibn Abd al-Barr in al-Tamhīd and other scholars have discussed the above meanings in their respective works.
  
And Allah Ta’ālā Knows Best

Mufti Faraz Adam  
www.darulfiqh.com