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Taking homeopathic medicine with brandy

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

A person I know has a medical condition and has been told by their doctor to take iron and vitamin D. However, they say that they, “[Don’t] like taking medicines.” They went to a homeopath who prescribed a mixture containing a large proportion of brandy. They asked me to find out if she could take it. Based on what I read onwww.sunnipath.com, I said I thought she couldn’t.

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

This would not be a reasonable excuse, because of:

a) the availability of reasonable non-prohibited alternatives;
b) the availability of homeopathic solutions with other than wine or wine-based alcohols.

Thus, it would be haram for the sister to take such medicine.

As for what ‘some scholars’ said, I have serious doubts as to whether the full picture was presented to them. Answers are only as true as the questions they are based on. I actually called one of the two scholars mentioned in the original question, and they confirmed that they had answered about homeopathic medicine containing alcohol. As you know, there is a difference between the general ruling of alcohol (which is permitted for medicinal or external uses, not for direct consumption) and the particular use of wine and wine-based alcohols (which are not permitted).

See:

Is using alcohol in any form haram? 

And Allah alone gives success.

Wassalam,

Faraz Rabbani

This answer was indexed from Qibla.com, which used to have a repository of Islamic Q&A answered by various scholars. The website is no longer in existence. It has now been transformed into a learning portal with paid Islamic course offering under the brand of Kiflayn.

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