Which book should you start with to learn Prophetic Medicine?

The essentials. Start with Ibn al-Qayyim's book of Prophetic Medicine: it is the one that gathers, chapter by chapter, the remedies reported from the Prophet ﷺ. Then read the treatises of Muslim physicians—Ibn al-Baytar for plants, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd for general medicine—keeping in mind that they are not Revelation and that they can be mistaken. Before applying anything, you need to understand a few simple rules: illness is an imbalance, evil is repelled by its opposite, and what diet can fix is not treated with plants. A book gives remedies; it gives neither diagnosis nor dosage, and it never replaces your doctor.

The question is more serious than it looks. People often buy three or four books at once, read twenty pages, and end up with a list of plants without knowing what to do with them. Prophetic Medicine isn't read like a catalog: it has a starting book, books for going deeper, and rules that must be understood before opening the first chapter.

The book to open first: Ibn al-Qayyim

If you could keep only one, it would be this one. Ibn al-Qayyim's book of Prophetic Medicine, often translated as The Prophet's ﷺ Medicine, is the reference that all teachings point back to. Its strength lies in its method: he proceeds remedy by remedy, starting from what Revelation and the Sunnah mentioned, then describing the nature of each remedy and its uses.

In it you will find, among many others, a chapter on siwak, one on senna, one on citron, one on chicory, one on cedar, as well as pages on squash, talbina, clay, truffle, and lengthy sections on waters. On senna, he reports this hadith transmitted by Asma bint 'Umays, in which the Prophet ﷺ said: "If any remedy could cure death, it would have been senna." On truffle, he reports that the Prophet ﷺ said: "Truffle is a form of manna, and its juice is a healing for the eye." On siwak, he cites this hadith reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim: "Were it not that I would impose a hardship on my community, I would have ordered them to use the siwak before every prayer."

It is also the book that will teach you to read a remedy beyond a mere indication. Ibn al-Qayyim describes things by their nature: ginger is hot in the second degree and moist in the first, senna is hot and dry in the first degree, squash is cold and moist, quince is cold and dry. This framework comes up constantly, and without it half the advice remains incomprehensible.

Muslim physicians: what each treatise contributes

Next comes the second layer, that of the physicians of the classical era. The Institute's courses cite several of them:

• Ibn al-Baytar — the botanist. He describes plants, their properties, their uses. It is he who wrote of ginger: "Ginger has a pleasant smell, its bitterness is laxative, it strengthens memory, and it helps those who have trouble seeing in the dark." Worth reading for anyone who wants to work seriously with plants.
• Ibn Sina (Avicenna) — the best known physician of that era. The Institute notes an important caveat: he ultimately strayed into philosophy. So we read his medicine without following him beyond that.
• Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Ibn al-Habib — two other names of that generation, worth knowing to place the history of the discipline more than to look for a protocol.
• Hippocrates — not a Muslim, but one that cannot be ignored: the father of humor theory, on which all ancient medicine was built.
• On the contemporary side, Dr. Jabir Al-Qahtani is frequently cited in the courses, notably on ginger, passionflower, fennel, oats, green tea, and eyebright.

One point deserves to be stated clearly, because it changes how you read. Humor theory is not based on Revelation: it can therefore be true or false, unlike Prophetic Medicine. The treatises of these physicians are works of men—valuable, sometimes outdated, never infallible. Ibn al-Qayyim's book, on the other hand, starts from a text.

What a single book does not give you

You can read ten books and still not know how to apply any of it. What's missing are the rules of practice, the ones that come before the first remedy. The Institute teaches five:

• The medicine of the body is of two kinds: innate medicine, which needs no reflection, and that which requires reflection and meditation.
• Illness is an imbalance.
• Illnesses are linked to their causes, to our sins, or to childhood.
• The role of Prophetic Medicine is to restore lost health or to preserve it, by repelling evil with its opposite or through abstinence.
• Any illness that can be overcome through diet is not treated with plants.

To this is added humor theory, which must be known in order to read the ancients: four things in the body—blood (liver and heart), lymph (brain), yellow bile (liver), black bile (spleen)—and four fundamental elements, air, fire, water, earth, with four forces, hot, cold, dry, moist, which must exist in balance for one to live in good health.

The rule of treatment by opposites runs through the whole teaching, moreover, and not only for the body. Commenting on the Prophet's ﷺ supplication, "O Allah! Wash me of my sins with the water of snow and hail," Ibn al-Qayyim explains that the heart needs this water to cool, settle, and strengthen itself: illnesses, of the body as of the heart, are treated by their opposites.

In practice: a four-step reading path

First step, the rules. Copy out the five rules and humor theory on a single page, and keep it in front of you throughout your reading. It is the framework that gives meaning to everything else.

Second step, Ibn al-Qayyim, one chapter at a time. Start with what touches your daily life. The chapter on waters, for instance, offers immediate help: he advises against drinking well water straight and recommends letting it settle overnight after being drawn; he notes that fresh water is useful to the sick as to the healthy, that the coldest is the most useful and best tasting, and that it is better not to drink it on an empty stomach, upon waking, after bathing, or after eating fruit. He also notes that seawater, useful for washing, is harmful to drink.

Third step, the plants. Move on to the plant treatises only after that. And get into the habit of noting four things for each plant, in this order: the part used, the indications, the method of preparation, the precautions. For clove, for example, these are the flower buds, indicated among other things for bloating, gastritis, and toothache; 1 to 3 g of cloves are used as a decoction, and for toothache one chews a clove three or four times a day. The "precautions" line is the most important of the four.

Fourth step, verification. Never copy a hadith without its reference. The courses themselves do this: when the chain is weak, they say so, as with the hadith reported by Zayd Ibn Arqam about oil and safflower for pleurisy, noted as weak in At-Tirmidhi. Learning to tell what is authentic from what is not is part of the training, just as much as the plants are.

Precautions

A book does not make a diagnosis. It describes remedies; it does not know what is troubling you, and the same complaint can hide very different causes. The doctor remains the reference point for a diagnosis and for an ongoing treatment.

The doses found in a treatise are not harmless. The eugenol in cloves is caustic, and in overdose this powerful sedative can depress the central nervous system. Saffron should not exceed 5 g per day because of its toxicity. Licorice is contraindicated in cases of high blood pressure and heart failure, and its use should not exceed four to six weeks. Evening primrose is contraindicated in cases of epilepsy. Several of the plants mentioned above are also not recommended during pregnancy and breastfeeding, nor for children: in case of pregnancy, breastfeeding, for a child, or if you are already undergoing treatment, a doctor's advice is necessary before taking anything.

Finally, a reminder to keep in mind when opening any book: healing comes from Allah, and remedies are only means. Reading a great deal heals no one; reading with method, understanding the rules before the recipes, gradually builds sound judgment.

Frequently asked questions

Do you need to read Arabic to get started?

No, not to get started. The great reference texts, starting with Ibn al-Qayyim's work on Prophetic Medicine, are available in French translation. Arabic becomes a real advantage later on, when you want to verify a wording or trace a hadith back to its source.

Which chapter of Ibn al-Qayyim should you start with?

With the ones that touch your daily life: water, siwak, the foods of the Sunnah. These are the chapters you can reread in light of your own day, and this is how the logic of the natures, hot, cold, dry, moist, gradually takes hold.

Is the theory of humors part of the religion?

No. Its father is Hippocrates, and it is not based on Revelation: it can therefore be true or false, unlike Prophetic Medicine. It is learned because it is the key to reading the old treatises, not because it is a sacred text.

Can one be trained using books alone?

Books provide the material, but not the reasoning that links a complaint to a cause, nor the measure of a dose. They also lack the sorting between what is authentic and what is not. Structured teaching, and the doctor for everything related to diagnosis, remain necessary.

In what order should you read the Muslim physicians?

Ibn al-Qayyim first, since he starts from the text. Ibn al-Baytar next if you want to work on plants. Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Ibn al-Habib come after, for history and general medicine, keeping in mind the reservation the Institute notes regarding Ibn Sina, who ended up straying into philosophy.