in his Sahīh, tracing it back to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

Those who permit treatment with forbidden substances draw an analogy with the permissibility of forbidden foods, such as carrion and blood, for someone in dire necessity. This analogy is weak for several reasons.

First, someone in dire necessity is certain to achieve his purpose by consuming these forbidden foods: eating them keeps him alive and relieves his desperate need. By contrast, a cure through foul substances—or indeed through other remedies—is not certain. How many people seek treatment without being cured! For this reason, scholars have permitted using wine to dislodge something stuck in the throat, because it achieves the intended result and is the only available means of doing so. Drinking it to relieve thirst is different, and they have disagreed over it, saying that it does not quench thirst.

Second, someone in dire necessity has no way to relieve that necessity except by eating these substances. In medical treatment, however, consuming this foul substance is not the only means of recovery. There are many kinds of medicines, and recovery may occur without medicines, through supplication and recitation for healing. This is the greater of the two forms of treatment. Hippocrates even said:

“Our medicine, compared with the medicine of the temple masters, is like old women’s medicine compared with ours.”

Recovery may also occur without any deliberately undertaken means, through the natural powers Allah places in the body and other such things.