Prayer as Healing: An Islamic Perspective

The English word "prayer" is generally understood as an act of addressing God with reverence, offering praise, giving thanks, affirming and confirming one's total dependence on God, and asking His grace, mercy, and help. In Islam, the closest equivalent to the word prayer is the Arabic word "Dua," literally meaning to call upon, to invoke, and to supplicate. "Dua" can be individual or collective, and is an essential element of both Islamic worship and daily ritual prayers. Genuine and earnest "Dua" is seen in Islam as a reality rather than a placebo, magic, or just a psychological construct. Prayer in Islam is both the essence and existence of life. The purpose of life is prayer and the effect of prayer is life.

Muslims conform themselves to the teachings of Islam's most authentic, revealed, and authoritative sources, namely the Qur'an and Hadith. The Qur'an, Muslims believe, is the verbatim, final, and definitive revelation from God, bestowed from on High through the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad from 610 C.E.-632 C.E. The Hadith or Sunnah is the corpus of teachings in which Muhammed explains and exemplifies the revelations of the Qur'an.

The Qur'an describes the dual nature of reality: the Creator and the creation. God is Alone, Unique, Transcendent, the Only Ultimate, Self-Sufficient, the Creator, Sustainer, and Judge Eternal. All existence is His creation, subservient to Him and dependent on Him. In its creation story, the Qur'an states that human beings were created to serve and worship God and to be trustees on earth, establishing the rule of God on earth where every form of existence lives its true nature in glorifying God and doing His will. Yet all creation, both human and non-human, is interdependent, inseparably interrelated, and absolutely dependent on God. Whereas natural beings surrender to God by their nature and instinct, humans endowed with freedom of will and choice are called to voluntarily and consciously surrender to God.

It is very important to note that the Qur'an does not subscribe to mind-body, soul-body, or spirit-matter dualisms. Muslims do not see human life and well-being or death and illness only in its material and physical form. Rather, a human being is a complex unity, an organism that includes all aspects of soul, spirit, mind, heart, psyche and body. Hence human health and wellness are inseparable from the spiritual and moral health of a person. Neither is a person's wellness or illness an isolated or exclusively individual phenomenon. Rather, it exists in a complex relation with nature and society, and is dependent upon the Transcendent.

The Qur'an states that God created, sustains, and controls life with order and purpose. Dr. Fazlur-Rahman writes, "The creation of the universe is itself God's primordial mercy, for in and by itself the universe has no warrant to exist. Nature is the handiwork of God and points beyond itself to Him. It works by laws that have been inlaid in it by God. Whenever God creates something, it falls into a pattern with the rest, resulting in cosmos rather than in chaos. Nature is one huge, firm, and well-knit machine; there are in it no gaps, nor ruptures, nor dislocations. Nature is autonomous, but not autocratic, because it did not bring itself into being." (Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition, p. 12).

Muslims do not see an inherent contradiction between the principles of natural causation, human freedom, and conscious choice on the one hand and Divine will and power on the other. The Qur'an teaches that God's decisive and creative action overarches all causation, yet God's will and command operate through natural and human activity and give them their meaning. The Qur'an exhorts believers to pronounce "God willing" before they intend or promise to take any action (Q. 18:24). Similarly a Muslim begins every activity by invoking the name of God, being conscious of the fact that nothing has inherent efficacy or power to bring fruits without the creative command of God.

Explaining this absolutely important point, Dr. Fazlur-Rahman writes: "... it is God who produces all events in nature and in persons, but He does not do so without certain objective conditions. Humans are charged with producing and manipulating these conditions and interfering in nature in certain ways, but it is God who causes the results. The Qur'an's position appears to be that God acts through natural causation and human volition to further His purposes" (Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition, p.16-17).

On the one hand, the Qur'an exhorts believers to exercise their God-given freedom and volition to be co-creators and servants of God. On the other hand, it reminds them of their utter dependence and finitude so as to ever remain prayerful and conscious of God. The Qur'an states: "And your Sustainer says, ‘Call unto Me and I shall respond to your prayers (Dua). Verily, they who are too proud to worship Me will enter hell, abased. And if My servants ask thee about Me, behold, I am near. I respond to the call of everyone who calls, whenever one prays to Me. Let them, then, pray to Me, and believe in Me, so that they may follow the right way'" (Q. 40:60; Q. 2:186).

As stated at the outset, Islam sees no life without prayer and faith. All practicing Muslims recite "Al-Hamd," the first sura of the Qur'an more than 24 times a day in their daily ritual worship prayer. In addition to giving praise and thanks to God, it also includes a verse: "To Thee alone, O God, we worship and from Thee alone, O God, we seek all support and help."

Islam developed "prophetic medicine" on the basis of the Hadith. Prophetic medicine encourages medical treatment, stating, "There is a medicine for every ailment; when a right medicine hits the corresponding disease, health is restored by God's permission." In addition, prophetic medicine gives broad principles of preventive cure, emphasizing the discipline of diet and the use of honey and certain herbs. Prophetic medicine also encourages the recitation of the Qur'an, remembrance of God, repentance from sins, giving charity, and making continuous prayer to God for healing. There is no doubt in the efficacy of prayer. However, prayer works along with the best and most appropriate medical treatment, not at the expense of it.

To conclude, the Islamic view of prayer is that nothing works by itself without God's will and permission. Illness or sickness is seen as an anomaly, an imbalance in God's created order, and a test from God. Its cause or reason always rests with the humans' wrong choices and misappropriation, but restoration of wellness is found through both the proper treatment and prayers. Believing in the efficacy of any medicine or drug or in the expertise of any surgeon or physician while ignoring the will and permission of God in that regard would correspond to disbelief and denial of God.

In Islam, God is the First and God is the Last. Without prayers to God, a Muslim cannot find restoration of health, nor is there meaning and purpose in a healthy life that is devoid of prayers to God. At every affliction or calamity, disease or death, loss or distress, the Qur'an teaches believers to proclaim "Verily to God we belong, and verily to God we return." (Q. 2:156.)