Contagious Diseases in Islam: Should we take precautions or just have trust on Allah?

Question: In Islam, should we take precautions to avoid contact with someone who got infected with contagious diseases like Flu or chickenpox? Avoiding contact includes complete quarantine or partial like just avoiding sharing towel, bed-sheet, etc as it says in hadith about the camel where prophet asked “And who infected the first one”. Should we take precautions or just have Tawakkul on Allah and ignore precautionary measures?

 

Summary of Answer: It is important to take precaution from proven contagious diseases like Flu, chickenpox etc. so that the disease does not spread to others. One may use any means necessary to stop this spread which may include quarantining the sick person from the healthy ones.

 

Answer: Praise be to Allah.

We have seen many Muslims rejecting the idea of precaution or spread of virus or spread of disease etc., claiming that diseases are not contagious and that they only spread if Allah wills. They quote the following hadeeth from Al-Bukhari (5316):

عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ عَنْ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ : ” لا عَدْوَى وَلا طِيَرَةَ وَلا هَامَةَ وَلا صَفَرَ “

Narrated from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (ﷺ) said: “There is no ‘adwaa [contagion, transmission of infectious disease without the permission of Allaah], no tiyarah [superstitious belief in bird omens], no haamah [refers to a Jaahili Arab tradition described variously as: a worm which infests the grave of a murder victim until he is avenged; an owl; or the bones of a dead person turned into a bird that could fly], and no Safar [the month of Safar was regarded as “unlucky” during the Jaahiliyyah]”.

Based on this they say that one does not have to take precaution from diseases like flu etc. and that the disease will not affect other person unless Allah wills.

Explanation of this Hadith:

Shaykh Ibn Uthaymin (may Allah have mercy on him) said: The words of the Prophet (ﷺ) “There is no ‘adwa” are general in meaning, thus the Prophet states that there is no contagion (without the permission of Allah). ‘Adwa (contagion) refers to the spread of a disease from a sick person to a healthy one.

What happens in the case of physical diseases may also happen in the case of psychological diseases. Hence the Prophet (ﷺ) said that a bad companion is the like one who operates the bellows: Either he will burn your clothes, or you will notice a bad smell from him.

The words “there is no ‘adwa” include both physical and psychological diseases, even though it is more apparent with regard to physical disease. The words “no tiyarah (lit. superstitious belief in bird omens)” refers to feeling superstitious because of something that you see, hear or know.

With regard to the words “no haamah”, haamah is interpreted in two ways:

1) That it is a bird similar to an owl, or an owl. The Arabs believed that if a person was killed, his bones became a haamah that could fly and shriek until he was avenged. Some of them believed that the haamah was the soul of the slain person.

2) Some of the Arabs said that the haamah was a particular bird, which they regarded as a bad omen. If it landed on the house of one of them and made a sound, they said that it was predicting a death. They believed that this was a sign that that person would die soon. All of these are undoubtedly false beliefs.

The words “No Safar” refers to the month of Safar, which the Arabs used to regard as inauspicious, especially for marriage. And it was said that it was a stomach disease that affected camels and was transmitted from one camel to another; based on this, mentioning it after ‘adwa (contagion) comes under the heading of mentioning something specific after something general.

It is more likely that what is meant by Safar here is the month, and that what is meant by saying “No Safar” is that it is not to be regarded as inauspicious, rather it is like any other time, during which good or bad things may be decreed.

Contagion is something that happens, as is indicated by the words of the Prophet:

Prophet (ﷺ) said, “Do not put a sick one with a healthy one” i.e., the owner of a sick camel should not bring it to the owner of a healthy camel, lest the contagion be transmitted.

And the Prophet (ﷺ) said: “Flee from the leper as you would flee from a lion.” Leprosy is a serious disease that is transmitted quickly and kills the one who catches it. It was even said that it is a plague.

Hence the command to flee from the leper so that the disease will not be transmitted from him to you. This is an affirmation of the effect of contagion, but its effect is not inevitable in such a way that it affects people by itself.

The command of the Prophet (ﷺ) to flee and not to bring sick camels to where healthy camels are comes under the heading of avoiding the means (that lead to sickness), not attributing the effect to the means themselves.

The means do not affect anything themselves, but we should avoid the things that may be a cause of calamity, because Allah says: “and do not throw yourselves into destruction” [al-Baqarah 2:195]

Prophet (ﷺ) did not deny the effect of contagion

We cannot say that the Prophet (ﷺ) was denying the effect of contagion because contagion is something that is proven to exist in real life and is mentioned in other ahadith.

When the Prophet (ﷺ) said “there is no ‘adwa”, a man said: “O Messenger of Allah, the camels may be healthy like deer, then a mangy camel comes and mixes with them and they all get the mange.” The Prophet said: “And who infected the first one?” meaning that the disease came to the first one with no contagion, rather it came from Allah.

By the same token, if it was transmitted by contagion, then it was transmitted by the command of Allah. A thing may have a known cause or it may not have a known cause. The mange of the first one does not have a known cause, apart from the fact that it happened by the will and decree of Allah, and the mange that came after it does have a known cause.

(Mange is a skin disease of mammals caused by parasitic mites and occasionally communicable to humans. It is characterized by severe itching, hair loss, and the formation of scabs and lesions. It is characterized by severe itching, hair loss, and the formation of scabs and lesions).

But if Allah wills the camel will not get mange. Hence sometimes a camel may get the mange but then it recovers and does not die. The same happens with the plague and cholera; they may enter a house and some may get sick and die, while others are not affected at all.

We have to put our trust in Allah and depend on Him. It was narrated that a leper came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and he took him by the hand and said, “Eat,” i.e., eat of the food that the Messenger was eating– because of the strength of his trust in Allah. This trust counteracts the causes of contagion.

What we have referred to above is the best way of reconciling between the ahadith. (End quote from Sharh Kitaab al-Tawhid, 2/80)

Conclusion

Based on the above explanation by Shaykh Ibn Uthaymin (may Allah have mercy on him), what is meant by the words of the Prophet “no ‘adwa (contagion)” is that disease is not transmitted from a sick person to a healthy one by itself, rather it is transmitted by the will and decree of Allah.

If a sick person mixes with healthy ones this is one of the causes of the transmission of disease. But this does not mean that it will inevitably happen, rather it only happens if Allah wills it. Hence we often see a sick mother give birth to a healthy child, but the disease is not transmitted to the infant.

Therefore, it is important to take precaution from proven contagious diseases like flu, chickenpox etc. so that the disease does not spread to others. One may use any means necessary to stop this spread which may include quarantining the sick person from the healthy ones.

Walahualam (and Allah knows best)!