Edit OmarKN
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{In the Name of Allah All-Beneficent Most Merciful.}
This article is divided in thirteen sections:
{Do they not look at the Camels, how they are made?} (Qur'ān 88:17).
The ability of Arabian camels to withstand water deprivation as well as help humans in harsh arid climates is truly remarkable and stems from several factors. They do not overheat, can withstand water loss, and store fats in the hump for use in times of food and water deprivation. In times of dehydration, the water seems to be lost from tissues, but not blood. For this reason there is no circulatory distress and the animals can sustain a loss of up to 25% of their body weight - up to 200 kilos! - without dehydration. (Humans lose water from blood and tissue and will die of sluggish circulation at a loss of 12% of their body water.) Camels can also re-hydrate very quickly.1
Camel meat is healthier than beef. A single camel, when slaughtered, feeds ninety to an hundred people. A Bedouin out of water can survive for weeks by slitting the lower lip of his camel and sharing its cud then, later, slaughtering it and drinking the water stored in its four-tiered stomach. In addition to their famed benefits in desert survival, they are highly resistant to many deadly viral diseases and their antibodies could be used for new drugs. Their immune systems are so robust that they remain free from many of the viral diseases that affect other mammals such as foot-and-mouth and rinderpest.2
A lactating camel can produce 4 to twelve kilos of milk a day for 9 to eighteen months. Camel milk is so rich in potassium - which helps retain water in the tissues - that the desert Bedouin who drinks it needs only 2 to 4 liters a day, as opposed to twelve liters of water a day to survive. Camel milk also contains lactose - a diuretic, - protein, iron, and more fat, water, phosphorus, calcium, and Vitamin C than cow's milk in addition to the diuretic and liver-strengthening properties of the wild herbs preferred by camels such as rosemary (iklīl), thyme (sa`tar), wormwood (shayh.), and southernwood (qays.ūm). It also stays fresh much longer than cow's milk. In times of drought the camel continues to lactate long after goats, sheep, and cows have stopped.3
The Prophet Muhammad - upon him and his House blessings and peace - alluded to the above facts when he stressed the merit of milk over any other food and said, as narrated from Ibn `Abbās - Allāh be well-pleased with both of them - by al-Tirmidhī, Abū Dāwūd, Ibn Mājah, and Ah.mad:
”The one Allāh feeds milk, let him say: "O Allāh, bless us with it and give us more!" For I know of nothing that suffices better for food and drink.”
The medicinal properties of the Arabian camel were known to Arab physicians. In his magisterial Canon - "a medical bible for a longer time than any other work"4 Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) mentions that chronic imbalance of the liver produces jaundice, dropsy (istisqā'), and swelling of the belly and that the health of the liver can be restored through a temporary diet of camel milk and male Arabian Najīb camel urine, "the most beneficient type of urine, then human urine."5 Avicennan textbooks by Ibn al-Azraq (d. 890) and al-Suwaydī (600-690) state, "The cure [for dropsy] is to drink the milk of the she-camel - together with its urine - fresh out of the udder,6 and to use that every day and leave everything else, for it is extremely efficient and of proven results."7
Ibn Sayyid al-Nās specifies, "notably desert camels feeding on wormwood and southernwood."8 Wormwood is among the herbs that are extremely useful in correcting digestive disorders in general and for helping detoxify the liver in particular, and is used in the treatment of hepatitis.9
Thus, Arabian camel urine was a standard prescription in Arabic medicine and remains a staple of Bedouin natural remedies to this day both as diuretic, snuff, and delousing hair wash.10
One of the great Arab physicians was the Antiochene Dāwūd ibn `Umar al-Ant.ākī (d. 1008) who knew Greek as well as Arabic, worked in Cairo and Damascus, and died in Makka. He produced a number of Arabic treatises, the most famous being his two-volume Tadhkirat Ulīl-Albāb wal-Jāmi` lil-`Ajab al-`Ujāb or "Memorandum Book for those Endowed with Hearts and the Encyclopedia of Wonders" - still available in print - in which he says:
”Urine differs according to its animal origin but it all tends to heat and dryness provided it does not come from an animal devoid of bile such as the camel. In the latter case, its dryness is minimal because it is devoid of salinity since nothing breaks down salinity, with water, other than the bile. All urine types dispel the effects of disease, cure the eye and the ear, chronic cough, difficulty in respiration, the spleen, and uterine pains, especially aged and/or congealed. The most effective types are human urine then the camel's.”11
A camel needs eight times more salt than ovines and bovines - 1 kg. weekly - and the low salinity of its urine is due to the fact that it produces ADH (anti-diuretic hormone) and aldosterone, a hormone that facilitates reabsorption of urine water from the urinary tracts into blood, reducing the quantity of urine. The liver has few excess amino-acids to degrade into urea and uric acid - highly toxic substances - because of the camel's vegetarian regimen. At the same time, aldosterone helps retain sodium at the level of the kidneys, which keeps water in the body. All this produces such a concentrated urine that the volume excreted can be reduced from 20 to 5 liters.12
Use of animal urine is endorsed in mainstream modern medicine. Pregnant mare urine is the source of conjugated equine estrogens and has been marketed for over fifty years as the pharmaceutical brand Premarin, "an estrogen treatment for menopausal and premenopausal women" especially postpartum - one of the most prescribed drugs in the United States.13 It was very recently discovered that adding distilled cow urine to medicaments increases their effectiveness while decreasing their side-effects, making anti-cancer and anti-tubercular drugs twenty times more effective and anti-bacterial drugs eighty times more effective.14 Human "urine therapy" is a staple of ayurveda but remains an underground semi-science in the West.
The Prophet Muhammad - upon him and his House blessings and peace - indicated the medicinal properties of camel urine for gastro-intestinal disorders 1,400 years ago when he said, as narrated from Ibn `Abbās - Allāh be well-pleased with both of them - by Ah.mad, al-T.ah.āwī in Sharh. Ma`ānī al-Athār, and al-T.abarānī in al-Mu`jam al-Kabīr - a firmly established narration according to al-Shawkānī in Nayl al-Awt.ār:
”There is, in the urine of camels and their milk, a cure for those with putrescent stomachs (al-dharibati but.ūnuhum).”15
The Damascene and Cairene physician `Izz al-Dīn Abū Ish.āq Ibrāhīm ibn Muh.ammad al-Suwaydī16 defined putrescence of the stomach as "a disease of the stomach that prevents it from disgesting aliments. They rot in it and it cannot retain them."17
This Prophetic prescription is reiterated in the famous h.adīth of the `Urayna Bedouins as narrated from Anas - Allāh be well-pleased with him - in its main variant wordings by al-Bukhārī, Muslim, al-Nasā'ī, al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah, and Ah.mad:
[B = Bukhārī; M = Muslim; T = Tirmidhī; N = Nasā'ī, IM = Ibn Mājah, A = Ahmad, all in the `Alamiyya numbering]
”Some people from `Urayna FOUND MADINA NOXIOUS (ijtawaw) so the Prophet (upon him peace) allowed them to go to the camels of s.adaqa and drink from their milk and urine.” B 1405 Shu`ba from Qatada from Anas; T 67 and 1965 H.ammād ibn Salama from H.umayd, Qatāda, and Thābit, from Anas; N 3961 `Abd Allāh al-`Umarī and others from H.umayd from Anas.
”Some people [var. Some people or men] from `Ukl and `Urayna had come to Madīna to see the Prophet (upon him peace) and pronounced Islām. They said, "Prophet of Allāh, we were people of udders; we were not people of plantation [i.e. NOMADS NOT FARMERS]." They FOUND MADINA INSALUBRIOUS (istawkhamū), so the Prophet (upon him peace) ordered that they be given some THREE TO TEN-YEAR OLD MILCH CAMELS (dhawd) with a camelherd and that they set out with them to drink [i.e. keep a regimen] of their milk and urine.” B 3871 and 5286; N 303 Sa`īd ibn Abī `Urūba from Qatada from Anas; N 3965 Shu`ba from Qatada from Anas.
”A group from `Ukl came to the Prophet (upon him peace) and STAYED IN THE S.UFFA. They found Madīna noxious so they said, "Messenger of Allāh, WE NEED MILK!" He said, "I have none to give you except if you catch up with the camels of the Messenger of Allāh." They went to them and drank from their milk and urine until they were cured and regained their weight.” B 6306 Ayyūb from Abū Qilāba from Anas.
”A GROUP OF EIGHT from `Ukl came to the Messenger of Allāh (upon him peace) and pledged their oath of Islām. Then they found the land insalubrious, they BECAME ENFEEBLED and complained of this to the Messenger of Allāh (upon him peace). He said, "Will you not go out with our herdsman and his camels, to drink some of their milk and urine?" They said yes and did so. Then they got better.” B 6390; N 3958 Abū Rajā' from Abū Qilāba from Anas.
”BEDOUIN ARABS from `Urayna came to the Prophet (upon him peace) and accepted Islām then found Madīna noxious to the point THEY BECAME JAUNDICED AND THEIR BELLIES BECAME SWOLLEN. The Messenger of Allāh (upon him peace) sent them out to some of his MILCH-CAMELS THAT HAD JUST GIVEN BIRTH (liqāh.)18 and ordered them to drink of their milk and urine until they got better.” N 304 and 3967 T.alh.a ibn Mus.arrif from Yah.yā ibn Sa`īd from Anas.
”A group from `Ukl and `Urayna pronounced Islām then came to the Messenger of Allāh (upon him peace) and told him they were people of udders not people of plantation. They complained of the FEVER OF MADINA. The Messenger of Allāh (upon him peace) ordered that they be given some three to ten-year old milch camels (dhawd) and ordered them to exit al-Madīna and drink from their milk and urine. They set out to the vicinity of al-H.arra.” A 12207 Ma`mar from Qatāda from Anas.
”A group from `Urayna came to the Messenger of Allāh (upon him peace) and said, "We found al-Madīna noxious, OUR BELLIES HAVE SWOLLEN AND OUR LIMBS HAVE THINNED!" The Messenger of Allāh ( ordered them to join up with the camelherd and drink from the camel's milk and urine. They did, until THEIR BELLIES AND COMPLEXIONS IMPROVED.” A 13572 Hammām from Qatāda from Anas.
All the above wordings are narrated solely from Anas ibn Mālik by at least eight trustworthy Tābi`īn with close agreement in both content and wording, give or take certain peripheral additional details, in the 70 chains of the six cited compilations alone.
Yathrib was insalubrious and known for its endemic fever, the h.ummā of Yathrib. Al-Bukhārī narrated that `A'isha said: "We came to al-Madīna when it was the most plague-infested land of Allāh. [The valley of] But.h.ān was covered with stagnant water." Dr. Ghiyāth H.asan al-Ah.mad avers that the disease referred to in the h.ummā h.adīths is malaria-type marsh fever and chills (h.ummā al-bardā').19 The h.ummā was grave enough to warrant visits and exhortations about death as narrated by al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah, and Ah.mad from Abū Hurayra. Al-Bukhārī, Muslim, and Mālik narrate from `A'isha that after their emigration Abū Bakr and Bilāl - Allāh be well-pleased with all of them - suffered painful bouts of high fever (wa`k) during which Bilāl would exclaim:
”"Will I ever sleep again in the valley fragrant with idhkhir and jalīl? Will I ever drink again from the spring of Majanna? Will I ever see again Shāma and T.afīl? O Allāh, curse [those] who EXPELLED US FROM OUR LANDS TO THE LAND OF PLAGUE!" Then the Prophet ( pronounced his famous supplication: "O Allāh, make al-Madīna as beloved to us as Makka, and even more beloved! O Allāh, bless us in our s.ā` and our mudd, make it wholesome for us, and TAKE AWAY ITS FEVER to al-Juh.fa!" `A'isha said: "We came to al-Madīna when it was THE MOST PLAGUE-INFESTED LAND OF ALLAH. BUT.H.āN WAS COVERED WITH STAGNANT WATER."”
Al Bukhārī, Muslim, and al-Nasā'ī narrate that another time, a desert Arab caught the fever of Madīna then came to the Prophet (upon him peace) saying, "Rescind my pledge!" But the Prophet (upon him peace) refused on two successive occasions. Then the man left Madīna and the Prophet (upon him peace) said: "Al-Madīna is like a forge. It expels its impurities while its good becomes burnished." He also said: "I was ordered to a town that devours the other towns. They call it Corrupt - Yathrib - but it is The City - al-Madīna. It expels [the wrong] people the way a forge expels impurities from iron." Narrated from Abū Hurayra by al-Bukhārī and Muslim.
This fever is the immediate reason the Madīnans on pilgrimage were ordered to practice ramal or vigorous circumambulation, despite their fatigue, as a deterrent showoff to any enemy Meccans that would prey on them due to their ailment, as narrated from Ibn `Abbās by al-Bukhārī and Muslim.
Dr. Mahmūd Nāzim al-Nusaymī saw the diseases caused by the fever of Madīna as one of two types: either fever caused by gastrointestinal infections such as typhoid and other types of salmonella; or malaria-type marsh fever and chills (h.ummā al-barda'). The former causes a swelling of the stomach and intestines while the latter causes a swelling in the pancreas and liver. These diseases are carried by insects such as mosquitoes, which fester in stagnant-water and vegetation-rich environments.20
Two Syrian contemporaries, the savant Shams al-Dīn Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751) in al-T.ibb al-Nabawī ("Medicine of the Prophet") and the eye specialist and antimonist of Safad al-Kah.h.āl `Alī ibn `Abd al-Karīm ibn T.arkhān (d. 759) in al-Ah.kām al-Nabawiyya fīl-S.inā`at al-T.ibbiyya ("The Prophetic Prescriptions in Medical Science") both believed that the disease diagnosed in the h.adīth of the `Uraniyyīn was a form of dropsy.21 Ascites dropsy is caused mostly by liver imbalance and can lead to cirrhosis.22 We mentioned the standard Avicennan prescription in such cases. This was tested recently. A researcher from a teaching hospital in the Sudan presented a study of 30 patients with ascites dropsy, an accumulation of fluid in the peritoneal cavity of the abdomen that causes distended stomachs.23 The study found that patients responded slightly better to 150 ml of camel urine a day than to the standard chemical-based medicine, the strong diuretic furosemide.24 However, ascites is not acquired in a short time and is a lifelong ailment. Nor is it infectious, so it is unlikely that eight people would contract it in a brief time and all at once.
According to our teacher Dr. Sāmir al-Nas.s., the likeliest diagnosis of the symptoms and background described in the h.adīth of the `Uraniyyīn is that the patients suffered from viral hepatitis (= literally "swelling"), a highly infectious inflammation of the liver that causes jaundice, bloating of the abdomen due to accumulation of fluid, and fever. Among its treatments are diuretics and low-fat diets.
The picture that emerges from the collated variants of the `Urayna h.adīth is as follows. A group of eight poor desert nomads came to Madīna, announced their Islām, and stayed at the S.uffa or Shelter along with the destitute among the Companions. During their stay they contracted hepatitis, possibly complicated by typhoid or malaria resulting in jaundice, weight loss, and distended stomachs. They craved milk and mentioned the fact that they were "people of udders," not farmers. The Prophet (upon him peace) sent them out of Madīna on a regimen of radical low-sodium diuretics25 - pregnant camel milk and urine - with his herd - the proceeds of zakāt for which they, as travellers, were eligible - at al-H.arra for a few days or weeks, where they got better. The camels were herded by a Najdī freedman of the Prophet's (upon him peace), Yasār, who had been captured in a raid on the Banū Tha`laba.
Imām al-Tirmidhī said, after narrating the `Urayna h.adīth, that the majority of the authorities do not consider the urine of edible animals filthy. Ibn Qudāma reiterates this ruling in the Mughnī and cites, among those that consider it pure, al-Zuhrī, Yah.yā al-Ans.ārī, `At.ā', al-Nakha`ī, al-Thawrī, Mālik, and Ah.mad. This is also the position of Muhammad ibn al-H.asan al-Shaybānī as stated by al-T.ah.āwī in Sharh. Ma`ānī al-Athār and al-Sarakhsī in al-Mabsūt.. `Abd al-Razzāq in his Mus.annaf and al-T.ah.āwī narrate the same from Muh.ammad ibn al-H.anafiyya, Ibrāhīm al-Nakha`ī, and `At.ā', some adding that camel urine is also sniffed for medicine as well as cow urine and sheep urine. Al-Bukhārī narrated:
”Yūnus ibn Yazīd asked Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī: "Can we make ablution with or drink the urine of camels?" He said: "The Muslims of old would use it as medicine and saw nothing wrong with it."”
Imām al-Shāfi`ī considered the Prophetic prescription of camel urine a life-and-death exception that has the same status as the dispensation for eating carrion meat in case of extreme necessity (and any filthy substance for medication other than intoxicants).26 Similarly, the H.anafī School considers the ruling of filth annulled if there is certainty of medicinal benefit, otherwise, camel urine remains najis according to Abū H.anīfa and al-T.ah.āwī. In addition, the `Uraniyyīn h.adīth itself is abrogated in the H.anafī view. Several major Shāfi`īs such as Ibn Khuzayma, Ibn al-Mundhir, Ibn H.ibbān, al-Is.t.akhrī, and al-Rūyānī defected to the position of Mālik and Ah.mad.27 In the Mālikī Madhhab prayer is valid even on road-paths soiled with the urine and droppings of edible animals.28 Ibn Rushd - Averroes - in his masterpiece of comparative fiqh titled Bidāyat al-Mujtahid says the rationale of the permissive ruling is that the refuse of edible animals is not repugnant, unlike that of humans and inedible animals.
Shaykh Muh.ammad al-`Akīlī, the Syrian-American translator of Ibn al-Qayyim's al-T.ibb al-Nabawī under the title Medicine of the Prophet (upon him peace), told this writer that he considered the mention of the term "their urine" (abwālihā) in all the above h.adīths a copyist's mistaken rewording of the word "their colostrum" (albā'ihā) in view of two factors: the word albā'ihā is so rare as to remain incomprehensible and therefore implausible to most copyists; second, albā'ihā looks so much like albānihā, "their milk," as to suggest diplology. The well-intentioned copyist then supplied the closest possible term in his or her mind - abwālihā. (Colostrum even beats milk as a vitamin and antibody- packed diuretic and is produced by the parturient camel for four to five days.) Yet the hypothesis does not stand to scrutiny in light of the profusion of the transmission chains and written manuscripts unanimous on the abwālihā wording and the fact that camel urine had a history of medicinal use among desert Arabs with which all the early Scholars seemed familiar. And Allāh knows best.
As for the conclusion of the h.adīth of the `Uraniyyīn in which the nomads commited apostasy, killed the camelherd after blinding and maiming him, stole the camels, were caught, blinded, maimed, and left to die of thirst, their execution was a literal retaliation according to Mosaic Law "before the penal laws were revealed" as narrated from Ibn Sīrīn by al-Bukhārī, Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and Ah.mad. And Allāh knows best.
As for those that would object to the h.adīths of camel urine, they usually share one or more of the following attributes:
- Ignorance of the Arabic language. They are unable to read the Qur'ān and h.adīth in the original Arabic, much less discuss them.
- Ignorance of Arabic history, ethnography, and literature. They do not know the culture of the people among whom circulated the texts that they purport to discuss.
- Ignorance of Arabic medicine. They have no idea that the medical works of the Islamic world "are the foundation upon which our modern Western medicine is built" (Elizabeth Fee, chief librarian, History of Medicine Division, United States National Library of Medicine).29 They are unable to assess the currency of certain medical practices in pre-Islamic and Islamic civilization and in the Arabo-Perso-Turkic literatures on anatomy, embryology, ophthalmology, botany, nutrition, etc. and could not fathom, for example, that non-intrusive diagnosis and treatment for the majority of non-terminal diseases be far superior in a place such as pre-1990s Kabul than in the U.S.A. and Europe.
- Inability to approach the issues scientifically and reliance on emotion and prejudice. They consider it rational to ask: Have you filled a prescription for animal urine lately? (An appropriate answer to such a question could be: Your mother most probably did after giving birth and did or will again around menopause, in the form of "Premarin" equine urine estrogens.)
- Ignorance of Islamic Law. They have no idea of the legal rulings on either filth or medication in Islām, nor the methods by which those rulings were extracted.
- Non-Arabic and/or non-Muslim background. Their knowledge of Islam and Arabic culture is mostly bookish, through the prism of orientalism whose mistakes they slavishly reduplicate, mostly in the language of modernism and agnosticism even if they identify themselves as Muslim.
NOTES
1See the comprehensive sites http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0690f/t0690f09.htm (in French) and - expired link (before 2023-02-03) http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/pubs/camels.
2news.bbc.co.uk and - expired link (before 2023-02-03) canbooks.com/camel.
3- expired link (before 2023-02-03) genista.net/gi/nm/drom-281.htm (in French) and Ghiyāth H.asan al-Ah.mad, al-T.ibb al-Nabawī fī D.aw' al-`Ilm al-H.adīth (2:215).
4William Osler as cited by Monzur Ahmed in his article "Ibn Sīnā, Doctor of Doctors," Muslim Technologist, November 1990.
5In Mah.mūd al-Nusaymī, al-T.ibb al-Nabawī wal-`Ilm al-H.adīth (3:242) and Muh.ammad Nizār al-Daqr, Rawā'i` al-T.ibb al-Islāmī: al-Qism al-`Ilājī (1:257).
6Jawād `Alī in al-Mufas.s.al fī Tārīkh al-`Arab Qabl al-Islām asserts they used to boil the urine first cf. al-Nusaymī, al-T.ibb al-Nabawī wal-`Ilm al-H.adīth (3:237).
7Ibn al-Azraq, Tas-hīl al-Manāfi` fil-T.ibbi wal-H.ikma ["The Facilitation of Benefits in Medicine and Wisdom"] (1206 Khayriyya Cairo ed. p. 60 =1315 H.amīdiyya Cairo ed. p. 51=another old Cairo edition p. 66) cf. al-Sha`rānī's epitome of al-Suwaydī titled Mukhtas.ar al-Suwaydī fil-T.ibb (1302 H.alabī Cairo ed. p. 51).
8Cited by al-Suyūt.ī in his Sharh. on al-Nasā'ī's Sunan (1:161).
9- expired link (before 2023-02-03) ibiblio.org/herbmed
10Cf. Gibrīl Jabbūr, The Bedouins and the Desert, transl. Lawrence I. Conrad, State University of New York Press, 1995 and Hilda and Dagg Gauthier-Pilters, The Camel, Chicago and London, 1981. City Arabs apparently know it only as a hair tonic.
11Al-Ant.ākī, Tadhkira (Cairo: Maymūniyya 1308/1891 ed. 1:77).
12- expired link (before 2023-02-03) esj-lille.fr, - expired link (before 2023-02-03) genista.net, and http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0690f/t0690f09.htm (all in French).
13http://www.premarin.com; - expired link (before 2023-02-03) my.athenet.net; and http://www.igha.org/pmu_link.html.
14http://www.rfi.fr/fichiers/MFI/Sante/641.asp (in French), quoting the British magazine Chemistry and Industry.
15As for the narrations "The stomach is the central basin of the body and the veins are connected to it..." and "The stomach is the house of disease" they are both forgeries cf. al-`Uqaylī, D.u`afā' (1:51), al-Suyūt.ī, Tadrīb (1:287), al-Qārī, Mas.nū`, etc.
16Author of a treatise on synonyms for plant names, a treatise on the medical uses of stones, and a Tadhkira of recipes and procedures for medicaments extracted from a large number of Islamic, Greek, and other sources, arranged from head to foot. Al-Sha`rānī epitomized his Tadhkira cf. Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine.
17Cited in al-Nusaymī, al-T.ibb al-Nabawī wal-`Ilm al-H.adīth (3:237)
"In any case, what Westerners call civilization, the others would call barbarity, because it is precisely lacking in the essential, that is to say, a principle of a higher order."
René Guénon, East And West, 1924
صلّى الله على سيّدنا محمّد و على آله و صحبه و سلّم
The blessings and peace of Allah on the Prophet, his Family, and his Companions, ( sallAllahu `aleihi wa sallam ) .
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