Medic and I

There is a saying “prevention is better than cure”. I’m an undergraduate student doing my Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), so the past few years I had studied about some disease and the aetiology of it. As time pass, I would say learning medicine do help me to understand Islam much better. I began to realize why Islam forbid us from doing certain things, because all the hukum-hakam in Islam was nothing but to prevent mankind from getting any diseases, let it be sakit yang betul-betul penyakit, penyakit akal, penyakit hati or anything. So basically yeah, Islam adalah agama yang mengesyorkan prevention is better than cure.

One example that I can give is regarding consumption of alcohol. Ada orang kata alcohol itu ibu segala panyakit. I can’t agree more to that statement because medically, by drinking alcohol you expose yourself to the risk of having atherosclerosis, myocardial Infaction, pancreatitis, leukoplakia, gastritis, peptic ulcer, etc. These are all the initial stage of the disease, wait until it progress to chronic stage with other complications arise and by that time tak dapat den nak nolong ha~. That’s why alcoholic beverage is haram in Islam and with the help of modern studies and all the sophisticated technique it explains why arak itu haram.

Another example is good hygienic practice in daily life. Do you know that there are lot of bacteria around us and as what my lecturer said “we are surviving in the world of bacteria.” FYI there are small group of bacteria which normally colonize on the surface of our skin which we called the normal flora. Thanks to our skin, it acts as the first defence mechanism against bacterial infection. There is a simple way to protect us from getting this bacterial infection (diarrhoea for example) which is by thorough hand wash. Using my ‘logic mind’ (lol) now I realise the scientific rationale of taking wudhu’ (ablution) in Islam.

This is me try to relate the teaching in Islam with scientific evidence. You see, it is our responsibility to seek knowledge let it be medicine, engineering, law or arts and try to relate it with our religious belief, InsyaALLAH it will strengthen our faith. God is always there with us, I realize now there’s no such thing like ‘I want to find god’, it just we don’t see it.

“We just have to
Open our eyes, our hearts, and minds
If we just look bright to see the signs
We can’t keep hiding from the truth
Let it take us by surprise
Take us in the best way”

-Maher Zain-

Khairul