Prophetic medicine (tıbb-ı nebevî)
“The Prophet’s medicine”: the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings on health and healing, and the books that grew from them.
Tıbb-ı nebevî means “the Prophet’s medicine” and refers to two things at once: the hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad on illness, treatment and the preservation of health, and the literature formed by collecting these hadiths. It is treated as part of the wider tradition of Islamic medicine [1].
The first work to present medicine through hadiths is said to be “al-Tibb al-nabawi” by Ibn Habib al-Sulami (d. 853). The most famous book of the genre is the work of the same name by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350), which is in fact the medical section of his “Zad al-ma‘ad”. Abu Nu‘aym al-Isfahani, al-Dhahabi and al-Suyuti also wrote in this field; in the Ottoman period the “Tıbb-ı Nebevî” of Hüseyin Remzi (d. 1896) stands out [1].
According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, the hadiths in this literature are judged by the same criteria as those in other hadith books: alongside authentic reports there are weak and fabricated ones, and some texts reflect the medical understanding of their time [1].
The recommendation of Black seed for certain illnesses is among the best-known examples in this field [1]. The popularity of black seed oil as a household remedy in Anatolia, remembered as a “cure for everything but death”, comes from this hadith tradition. How far the plant is supported by science today is a separate question, answered on the black seed page.