Ruling on seeking medical treatment through crystal stones and what is similar
Fatwa No: 7243

Question

What is the sharia ruling on seeking medical treatment through crystal stones? Is it lawful to use them, or it is considered a type of shirk (polytheism)?

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

It is permissible to seek treatment through materials that have been proven effective based on a religious or scientific evidence or through perception and experiment. It was established that the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, allowed seeking treatment. In a Hadeeth, the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said, "Allah has never created a disease but that He created a treatment for it." Treatment is just a means that we are allowed to utilize.

Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salih Al-‘Uthaymeen said:

Medical treatment is a means of healing; and it is of two types:

1- Means that have been prescribed in the Sharee'ah, such as treatment by the Quran and supplication.

2- Physical means, such as medicines known by the Sharee'ah, like honey, or by experiment, like many kinds of medicine. The effect of this kind of means should be produced through direct application, not by way of imagination and illusion. Every curative substance whose effect is directly and tangibly detected is permissible to be used as a remedy by means of which recovery is achieved by the permission of Allah Almighty ... However, any method of treatment that has not been proven as a means that is approved by the Sharee'ah or experience is not permissible to be regarded as a means of healing. Considering such methods as means of treatment involves an aspect of transgressing against the Sovereignty of Allah and a form of shirk because, by doing this, the person makes himself a partner of Allah in setting the means that lead to the ends.

This is a good argument that can be utilized in deducing the ruling on the stones under question and similar ones.

Thus, we say to the questioner: if the usefulness of these stones in the treatment of a certain disease has been proven based on experiment, then it is permissible to use them. The users' belief in and certainty about the effectiveness of these stones as treatment does not blemish the permissibility as long as they are still believed to be just ordinary means for treating a disease and warding it off through one of the properties created into them by Allah, the Exalted, that has been proven effective by veteran and experienced specialists.

It is quite known that some physical means hardly fail to produce the hoped effect by the Permission of Allah Almighty. However, one must not rely on the means in itself. Rather, he has to rely on the Creator and Maker of the means, Allah Almighty alone, Who benefits and afflicts with harm, and Who Has no partner.

Allah knows best.

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