517 — “Glory be to Allah! Has Allah sent down any disease on earth without providing a cure for it?”

Imam Ahmad recorded it (5/371): Ishaq ibn Yusuf narrated to us: Sufyan narrated to us, from Mansur, from Hilal ibn Yisaf, from Dhakwan, from a man of the Ansar, who said: “The Messenger of Allah visited a man suffering from a wound and said: ‘Call for him the physician of such-and-such a clan.’ They called him, and he came. He said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, will medicine be of any use?’ He replied …” Then he cited it.

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy and known, and are among Muslim’s narrators, apart from the Ansari man, who was apparently a Companion. The anonymity of a Companion does not detract from the report, especially since the basic hadith is well-known from the Prophet, being narrated from him by a number of Companions, including Anas ibn Malik, Abu Saʿid al-Khudri, Abu Hurayrah, Jabir, Usamah ibn Sharik, Abdullah ibn Masʿud, and Safwan ibn ʿAssal. I have traced their hadiths and discussed their chains of transmission—most of which are authentic—in Takhrīj Aḥādīth al-Ḥalāl wa-l-Ḥarām (Verification of the Hadiths on the Lawful and the Forbidden), no. 290. I have only cited this here because of the particular benefit found uniquely in it: its clarification of the circumstance in which the hadith was uttered. All praise is due to Allah for granting success.

518 — “Indeed, Allah has not sent down any disease without sending down a cure for it, except old age. So use cow’s milk, for they graze on every kind of tree.”

Al-Tayalisi recorded it (368): al-Masʿudi narrated to us, from Qays ibn Muslim, from Tariq ibn Shihab, from Abdullah, from the Prophet. Al-Hakim also recorded it through this route (1/197). Its narrators are trustworthy, except that al-Masʿudi suffered memory deterioration before his death. His name was ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn ʿAbdullah ibn ʿUtbah ibn Masʿud al-Kufi. However, he was corroborated: al-Tabarani recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (3/49/1) through Zufar ibn al-Hudhayl, from Abu Hanifah, from Qays ibn Muslim, with the same chain. This is an acceptable corroborating report. Yazid ibn Abi Khalid differed from them both, narrating: from Qays ibn Muslim, from Tariq ibn Shihab, that the Prophet said it. He did not mention Abdullah—namely, Ibn Masʿud.