a cause of preventing it. The divine decree takes effect in either case, so withdrawal serves no purpose.

A similar example is the authentic report that he forbade making vows, saying: “It brings no good; it merely extracts something from the miser.” He thus explained that vows are not among the means by which benefit is obtained or harm averted. Rather, we leave him to what has been decreed for him. He therefore forbade making vows because they serve no purpose.

As for the hadith concerning the seventy thousand, he did not describe them as abandoning all medical treatment. Rather, he described them as forgoing cauterization and refraining from asking others to perform ruqyah (healing recitation) for them. Cauterization is disliked, and he forbade it in another hadith, saying: “I forbid my community to use cauterization.” Someone who asks another to perform ruqyah has done nothing beyond relying on the person performing it. Relying instead on Allah alone—glorified be He, with no partner—is more beneficial to him.

This is the other answer: someone who asks another to perform ruqyah weakens his reliance on Allah, for he