Ayatollah Sayyid Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the highly effective Chief Justice of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1999 to 2009 and one of many potential successors of the Supreme Chief, died of most cancers in December 2018. After his demise, his son revealed that the ayatollah had delayed the most cancers therapies really useful by his medical doctors as a result of he had trusted “Islamic drugs” to treatment his illness. Because of this, when he lastly determined to make use of “western” drugs, it was too late, and the most cancers had already metastasized extensively.
Ayatollah Shahroudi was not alone in his religion in Islamic drugs. Many different high-ranked Shi’a students avidly help it to be part of the biopolitical agenda of the Islamic authorities. In distinction, others argue that drugs is an unbiased self-discipline and can’t be derived from non secular scripture.
Spiritual Biopolitics and Islamic Drugs in Iran
In February 2019, a video went viral on Iranian social media that includes a distinguished Shi’a cleric burning a replica of Harrison’s Rules of Inner Drugs. That cleric was Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian, identified to his followers as “the daddy of Islamic drugs.” By burning that medical textbook, he meant to symbolically declare conflict in opposition to what he refers to as “colonialist, western, and chemical drugs.” As an alternative, he promotes what he calls Islamic drugs.
Born in 1962 in Najaf, Iraq, Tabrizian is a high-ranked Shi’a cleric (an ayatollah) and a graduate of main Shi’a seminaries. Though he’s presently probably the most distinguished determine in Islamic drugs in Iran, he’s not alone in supporting Islamic drugs; different distinguished ayatollahs have asserted their completely different levels of help for it.
Islamic Science
The founding father of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, as soon as acknowledged that “Fiqh (or Shari’a) is a complete plan for human life from the cradle to the grave!” The Islamic Republic, over the previous 45 years, has tried to base its politics, economics, and social insurance policies on the Shi’a model of Islamic Shari’a. Many Shi’a students marvel why not drugs.
Growing “Islamic” science, together with Islamic drugs, has been a giant a part of the Islamization agenda for a strong group of Shi’a students for the reason that institution of the Islamic Republic in Iran. For instance, Ayatollah Sayyid Mohammad Mendi Mir Bagheri, the pinnacle of the “Islamic Sciences Academy of Qom,” and an influential determine and a possible (however unlikely) future successor of the supreme chief, is an advocate of making Islamic science, even Islamic physics, chemistry, and naturally, drugs. Highly effective figures like him are the faces of a department of Islamic biopolitics in Iran that promotes the event of Islamic drugs.
Islamic Drugs as a Department of Antiscience
Pseudoscience makes an attempt to masquerade as reliable science, but it falls in need of assembly scientific requirements. In distinction, antiscience positions itself as superior to and extra authoritative than science. Regardless of their variations, the boundary between pseudoscience and antiscience usually blurs, making it difficult to differentiate between the 2. Nevertheless, within the case of Islamic drugs, this distinction is evident: It represents antiscience outright.
Islamic drugs asserts that understanding human well being and sickness, together with preventive and therapeutic measures and coverings, have to be derived from the non secular scriptures. The non secular scripture in Shi’a Islam encompasses the Quran and Sunna. Sunna is what the prophet and twelve harmless Imams, his rightful successors, have stated (hadith), did, or agreed upon. By way of a course of referred to as Ijtihad, Shi’a students derive decrees from these sources.
Being well-trained in Ijtihad, Ayatollah Tabrizian, and his followers pursue an endeavor that has lengthy intrigued clerics: deriving medical practices from the Islamic scripture to ascertain an Islamic drugs.
The Boundaries of Shari’a: Islamic Authorities and Islamic Drugs
You will need to make clear a number of factors:
First, this paper focuses on Iran’s expertise, the place roughly ninety % of Iranians are formally categorized as Shi’a. This designation is recorded on their delivery certificates and can’t be modified later in life. Whereas present Iranian legislation permits gender adjustments in uncommon circumstances, altering one’s faith is strictly forbidden and punishable by demise. Because of this, the true proportion of Iranians who genuinely adhere to Shi’a Islam is unknown. Latest polls and estimates point out a rising pattern, notably amongst youthful generations, in the direction of figuring out as non-religious or as followers of different religions akin to Christianity and Zoroastrianism.
Second, Iran is ruled as an Islamic Republic, that means that, in response to its structure, all legal guidelines, guidelines, and rules have to be primarily based on Islam or a minimum of not contradict it. On this context, “Islam” particularly refers to Shi’a Islam. The formally acknowledged model of Shi’a Islam is the one that’s taught in formal non secular seminaries. A key idea in Iran’s Islamic Republic, referred to as “velayat-e faqih”, is the rule of the Supreme Chief, a senior determine (ayatollah) educated in these seminaries. Due to this fact, except acknowledged in any other case, this paper makes use of the time period “Islam” to confer with the formal model of Shi’a Islam as practiced and interpreted in Iran.
Third, inside Shi’a scholarship (comprising fuqaha or ayatollahs), there have lengthy been debates about whether or not scripture or motive ought to be the first supply of legislation and ethics. “Scripture” refers back to the Qur’an, thought-about the best supply of jurisprudence, and the Sunnah. As talked about above, in Shi’a Islam, the Sunnah contains the sayings, actions, and approvals of the Prophet and his successors, the twelve Imams, that are recorded in numerous “hadith” books. Regardless of these debates, most Shi’a students aligned with the formal and ruling model of Islam in Iran keep that when scripture gives a transparent assertion or steerage, it takes priority over motive.
Fourth, Shi’a students have lengthy debated what elements of life are coated by shari’a (fiqh or the jurisprudence and ethics derived from the Scripture) and what aren’t. This query has produced completely different solutions over time. Within the formal model of Islam that features the idea of “velayat-e faqih,” it’s accepted that there are things like Islamic politics and Islamic economic system—areas guided by the scripture and led by ayatollahs. Nevertheless, there was no consensus on whether or not there’s such a factor as “Islamic drugs.”
The Function of Islamic Drugs
The present chief and the highest brass of the Islamic Republic don’t depend on Islamic drugs for their very own healthcare. As an alternative, they entry high-quality scientific medical therapies which can be unaffordable to most Iranians. Situations just like the one talked about firstly of this paper are uncommon. Whereas the Iranian Ministry of Well being and Medical Schooling does help Conventional Iranian Drugs, it disapproves of Islamic drugs and ceaselessly clashes with its practitioners. Moreover, many high-ranking Shi’a students, together with some who help the Islamic authorities, argue that Islamic drugs doesn’t exist. They declare that the medical-related hadiths are both too few in quantity or insufficiently authenticated as being attributed to the Prophet or Imams to ascertain a definite department of medication.
Nevertheless, many influential Shi’a students, together with ayatollahs, are avid supporters and suppliers of Islamic drugs. They contend that if politics, economics, and ethics have to be derived from the Scripture, then drugs ought to be as effectively. Regardless of debates over the authenticity of some health-related directions attributed to the Prophet or Imams, the sheer quantity of those directions makes it difficult for a lot of Shi’a students to dismiss the existence of Islamic drugs totally.
Practitioners of Islamic drugs, usually educated in Shi’a seminaries, have robust connections in influential circles, making it difficult for the Ministry of Well being to oppose them successfully. Because of this, regardless of official disapproval, these practitioners keep a presence within the media, together with on government-controlled nationwide TV. They proceed to thrive in a worthwhile market by interesting to folks whose non secular beliefs make them turn into clients of Islamic drugs.
The COVID-19 Pandemic and The Purveyors of Islamic Drugs
The COVID-19 pandemic shortly turned a fertile floor for spreading health-related disinformation because it gained international consideration in early 2020. With a restoration charge of roughly 98%, proponents of unverified therapies usually attributed pure recoveries to their very own so-called success tales. Moreover, widespread public concern drove many anxious people towards confident promoters of “miracle cures.” Islamic drugs was fast to hunt a portion of this profitable market.
Ayatollah Tabrizian emerged as a notable purveyor of such miracle cures for COVID-19. A vocal anti-vaccine advocate, he ceaselessly disseminated conspiracy theories by his lectures, which have been shared on his common on-line and social media accounts. He really useful making use of violet oil to the anus as each a preventive and therapeutic measure in opposition to COVID-19, a suggestion that turned a joke amongst Iranians. Moreover, he promoted a treatment attributed to Imam Kazim (765 – 799 CE), one of many 12 harmless Imams referred to above in Shi’a Islam, claiming it might treatment all respiratory ailments, together with COVID-19.
In March 2020, a video went viral displaying considered one of Tabrizian’s college students, Morteza Kohansal, inside a COVID-19 hospital ward. With out carrying a masks, Kohansal utilized “Prophet’s fragrance” to the noses of hospitalized sufferers. This harmful conduct was extensively condemned by healthcare professionals on the time.
The Follow of Islamic Drugs
Islamic drugs is now practiced in quite a few unlicensed clinics, and its merchandise are being bought extensively by the representatives of Ayatollah Tabrizian and different purveyors throughout Iran and even in different international locations with Shi’a populations, akin to Iraq. They’re common in social media; for instance, the present variety of followers of Ayatollah Tbrizian’s Telegram channel is nearly 140 thousand, and it exceeded 200 thousand up to now; despite the fact that Telegram is banned in Iran and folks want to make use of web censorship circumvention (ICC) instruments to entry it. Here’s a glimpse of a number of the content material, along with the therapies for COVID-19 talked about above:
- Their social media and different on-line pages are stuffed with anti-science and anti-Western claims, akin to conspiracy theories concerning the plans of the infidels and the imperialists to hurt Muslims by depriving them of their pure treatments and spiritual life-style and, as an alternative, promoting them the merchandise of pharmaceutical corporations and genetically modified meals.
- Their understanding of human anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology, and their terminology in these fields, are much like that of Conventional Iranian Drugs, which is predicated on the idea of humors and temperaments. The reason being obvious. The scripture they depend on was developed at a time (7th to 11th centuries BC) when these theories have been dominant within the Center East. Nevertheless, they distance themselves from the philosophical bases of these theories and attribute all of the processes and adjustments within the human physique to the need and command of God.
- For instance, on the official web site of Ayatollah Tabrizian, there’s a piece that features his lectures on “Islamic anatomy”. These lectures are a humorous combination of recent, humoral, and scripture-based anatomy stitched along with magical pondering. In response to them, as an illustration, semen is derived from vessels and hair; if throughout conception, the dad and mom are below stress, their future youngster will resemble their (the kid’s) uncles; additionally, the longer term kids inherit their blood from the mom and their bones from the daddy (Lecture 30); the chest is fabricated from phlegm; additionally phlegm comes from different organs, such because the mind, to the chest, that’s the reason there’s an overflow of sputum within the chest that makes its technique to the surface of the physique with coughing. The chest has a chilly temperament and cools the center to stop it from turning into too sizzling and injury the physique (Lecture18); the essential materials of hair and nails is “ailments,” and rising hair and nails is the physique’s technique to excrete ailments (Lecture #1); the rationale behind some embryonic anomalies is their refusal to simply accept God’s creed on the time of conception; and Devil has the power to circulate inside human vessels like blood and trigger ailments (Lecture # 27).
- Their preventive and therapeutic directions and treatments are additionally derived from the scripture. For instance, on their web site, they promote potions and amulets to deal with epilepsy (which they declare is attributable to jinn), blood most cancers, thalassemia, hemophilia, diabetes, and innumerable different situations. These purported drugs are made out of a mixture of assorted herbs. The one proof supporting their security and effectiveness comes from their descriptions in non secular scripture and the interpretations of specialists in Islamic jurisprudence and drugs. As well as, interventions akin to moist cupping and bloodletting are carried out in response to the directions discovered within the scripture.
- Along with the seminary-educated purveyors, many different practitioners of Islamic drugs, together with many charlatans, attempt to achieve a share of this profitable market. Their practices embody many weird claims, akin to prescribing camel’s mind for treating platelet deficiency and camel urine for treating respiratory ailments. Nevertheless, as a result of they lack the information and coaching to derive directions from the scripture, it’s onerous to incorporate them within the circle of legitimate practitioners of Islamic drugs.
An Aggressive however Declining Type of Religiosity
In his e-book Faith’s Sudden Decline, Ronald Inglehart describes how between 2008 and 2020, most developed international locations have turn into much less non secular. In different phrases, organized religions have misplaced their recognition, and fewer percentages of individuals nonetheless take into account themselves non secular in that sense. This e-book additionally explains how, by turning into much less common, some religions turn into extra aggressive and extremist of their social—together with biopolitical—viewpoints and approaches.
Though no formal statistics exist, it’s a consensual commentary that previously many years, the normal model of Shi’a Islam has misplaced its recognition in Iran. The proportion of people that nonetheless comply with the directions of ayatollahs has shrunk considerably. On the similar time, extremist concepts and aggressive approaches have turn into extra prevalent among the many highly effective fraction of Shi’a students and believers who’re dealing with social shrinkage and lack of recognition. For instance, by having management of the parliament, they’ve handed extremist legal guidelines on household planning, abortion, and, most lately, girls’s compulsory hijab, hoping to drive folks, particularly girls, to comply with their medieval concepts. The latest outburst of Islamic drugs may be seen as part of such a phenomenon.
Conclusions
Islamic drugs, as is presently promoted and practiced by some Shi’a students in Iran, is a department of medical antiscience. The proponents of Islamic drugs in Iran attempt to combine it into the political agenda of the Islamic authorities, so it turns into part of the regime’s biopolitical agenda, together with its reproductive and compelled veiling (hijab) insurance policies. Most Shi’a students, both inside or exterior of the federal government, oppose the notion of deriving an unbiased college of medication from the scripture (though they agree with following the health-related directions of the scripture in numerous levels). Even many of the main figures of the Islamic Republic don’t belief the purveyors of Islamic drugs with their well being. Nevertheless, the purveyors of Islamic drugs and their supporters are nonetheless highly effective sufficient to safeguard an unlimited and profitable marketplace for training their drugs and advertising their merchandise.
There are not any formal statistics on the injury incurred by such practices. Nevertheless, many circumstances, together with those that occurred through the COVID-19 pandemic, have made their method into the media and present simply the tip of the iceberg of the injury created by the purveyors of Islamic drugs in Iran. Informing folks concerning the dangers of such practices will at all times be a part of the agenda of the proponents of science-based drugs in Iran. The identical drawback, with variations of their options, ought to be addressed in different Muslim-majority international locations and Muslim communities everywhere in the world.