Many people, including relatives, friends and acquaintances experience illness of one kind or another at some time in their lives.
We care for them, visit them and give them assurance or advice that their illness is temporary and that Allah will cure them.
Inherent wisdom
There is great wisdom behind the existence of sickness. It reminds people of their mortality and vulnerability. It is also a time of forgiveness of one’s sins.
It is human nature to become self-deluded and deem ourselves self-sufficient and nobody and nothing.
This human tendency increases if the person has been given something from the pleasures of the world; it could be power, strength, wealth, prestige, beauty or knowledge.
When such a person falls ill, it reminds him about the reality of his existence.
The Quran says, “Allah wishes to lighten (the burden) for you; and man was created weak” (4:28). This shows that man is in need of his Creator every moment of his life.
Illness can be a way that Allah purifies one from his sins.
Minor sins
Prophet Mohammed said, “A believer is not hit by any exhaustion, worry, grief, harm, dejection, misery or gloominess, even the prick of a thorn, except that Allah expiates sins because of it” (Bukhari).
He also said, “When Allah desires good for a person, He strikes him with some affliction” (Bukhari).
A majority of scholars see that illness is expiation for minor sins only; major sins require specific repentance.
We often neglect visiting the sick.
The Prophet said, “Indeed Allah will say on the Day of Judgment, ‘O son of Adam, I became sick and you didn’t visit me.’
The servant will say, “O Lord, how could I visit You for illness while You are the Lord of the worlds?”
He will say, “Did you not know that one of my servants fell ill but you did not visit him? Did you not know that if you had visited him you would have found me there?” (Muslim).
An obligation
There is no specific kind of illness that one must have to deserve a visit.
A Muslim should visit his brother when he is afflicted by any kind of ailment.
Zayed bin Arqam said, “The Prophet visited me when I had a pain in my eye.”
Some scholars such as Bukhari and ibn Taymiyyah were of the opinion that visiting the sick is an obligation. Their evidence was the narrations from the sunnah in which the Prophet commands us to visit the sick,
As for visiting non-Muslims, ibn Taymiyyah said, “There is nothing wrong with visiting the ill if they are not Muslim, and it is possible that good would come out of that in the form of causing the sick one to incline towards Islam.”
In the case of non-Muslims who are family, especially parents, it is an obligation to visit them when they are sick. It is Sunnah to make dua (prayer) for the sick when one is visiting them.
Among the prayers that the Prophet would make when visiting the sick are these:
“May no harm come to you from this illness, it is cleansing you” (Bukhari).
“Let the harm go away, Lord of the people, cure (him), for You are the One who cures. There is no cure except Your cure that leaves behind no (traces of) illness” (Bukhari).
Time to repent
Visitors should remind the sick of the need to repent, because there is a chance that he may pass away.
The Prophet said, “Allah accepts repentance from a servant as long as he does not do ghargharah (reach the point where the soul is at the throat).”
One should remind the sick to write his last will, because the Prophet also advised, “It is not the right of a Muslim person who has anything, to spend two nights without writing his will.”
One should not pressurise or force the person who is sick to eat food they do not want to eat. Otherwise, the sick person may get upset or frustrated and those emotions would delay his recovery.
While people are healthy, they should be consistent about certain good works so that they can reap the reward of those works even when illness prevents them from those deeds.
Abu Dawud reported that Abu Musa Al Ash’ary heard the Prophet say more than once, “If a servant used to do a righteous deed, and then an illness or journey prevented him from that deed, it will be written for him like the righteousness of what he used to do when he was healthy and settled.”
Source: Rocket Science, Newsletter of Mt Albert Islamic Centre
