Speculative Education in Islam

By: Muhammad Baqir Qarashi
Islam has constituted a distinctive course of nutrition, and ordered Muslims of applying them to their lives.
Moderation of food:
Islam has shown the necessity of moderation in food. God says:
O, children of Adam! Attend to your embellishments at every time of prayer, and eat and drink and be not extravagant. Surely, He does not love the extravagant.
This holy Verse includes the principals of the general health and founds an equable rule of physical safety. This is the moderation of eating. Overeating ravages the body and causes the infliction of many diseases. Imam as-Sadiq (s) says, “If people economize in their eating, their bodies will be sound.” Imam ar-Rida (s) says in ar-Risaletu Thehebiya, “O Amirul-Muminin*! Consider only the food that suits you and your stomach, and intensifies and relishes your body to prepare it for yourself and use as the diet. The excessive food is useless. The food that is neither excessive nor imperfect is the useful. You should not have the adequacy of food. You should leave the food while you are still craving for it. This is better for the stomach and the body, and more helpful for the mind and less heavy for the physique.”
Islam has underlined the necessity of moderation in eating since it achieves the physical soundness and takes away from diseases. The Prophet (s) said, “Eat only when you crave, and abstain while you are still craving.” “Sons of Adam –human beings- have not filled a bowel worse than the abdomens. Sons of Adam should be content with a few bits that rectify the body. If this is impossible, one third should be given to eating, and one third to drinking, and one third to breathing.” “Stomach is the house of every malady. Diet is the head of every remedy. Give the soul what it habituates.”
Overeating creates serious and impending developments that lead to many dangers and difficulties. Some of these dangers are as follows:
- Overeating causes fatness, which is a serious ailment, since it brings about heart troubles, hypertension, nephric defects, and diabetes.
- Overeating causes the digestive system to encounter many diseases due to the extension and reduction of the stomach, such as ulcer and the like.
- Immoderation in eating causes problems of fecundity. Modern medical surveys have proven that the immoderation in having food, especially the fatty, affects the activities of the glands and the sexual reproduction. In some cases, it may lead to barrenness.
- Overeating may cause mental defects and idiocy.
Food mastication:
Islam has urged on food mastication and added it to the healthy courses due to which the physicians become unneeded. Modern medical searches have supported this fact and assured that bad mastication creates many defects to the digestive system.
Coldness of food:
Islam has banned from having hot food. The Prophet (s) said, “Cool the food. The hot food lacks bless.” Physicians have proven that having hot food creates dental defects.
Forbidden food:
Islam has forbidden some foods that ruin the health and destroy the body. Instead, it has referred to some foods that comprise essential elements. God says:
O you who believe! Eat of the good things that we have provided you with, and give thanks to Allah if him it is that you serve. He has only forbidden you what dies of itself, and blood, and flesh of swine, and that over which any other name than that of Allah has been invokes. But whoever is driven to necessity, not desiring, nor exceeding the limit, no sin shall be upon him. Surely, Allah is forgiving, merciful. Forbidden to you is that which dies of itself, and blood, and flesh of swine, and that on which any other name than that of Allah has been invoked, and the strangled animal and that beaten to death and that killed by a fall and that killed by being smitten with the horn, and that which wild beasts have eaten.
The dead animal:
The dead animal is that departs life before legal slaughtering. Specialists mention several damages of the animals that depart life naturally. They say, “Animals are not died unless there is a reason. If it is a disease, it is still in that animal’s carcass that is poisoned by unnatural materials that harm man even if fire sterilizes it. Such carcasses are similar to the fermented food that is harmful even if it is sterilized from germs. Having the meat of such carcasses may lead to death.” “All of the natural qualities and vital materials of carcasses are missed as soon as death occurs. If such fresh carcasses are eaten, a gastric colic and tense enterotoxins occur. In case such carcasses had been dead for a long time, they are changed into lethal poisons that damage the human body totally, such as hemiplegia, apoplexy, and sudden death. Sometimes, it may cause barrenness.”
Animals that are dead due to senility carry damages similar to the diseased. Senility results in the disintegration of all of the tissues that affects the nutritive values of the meat and its digestibility, which create gastronomical diseases.
Blood:
Islam has forbidden having blood, because it is the hotbed of germs. They breed and spread in the blood to carry poisonous secretions. Blood, when consumed, causes hurray in the gastric tissues in addition to other serious diseases. The blood of diseased animals causes high temperature and hypertension.
Pork:
Trichinosis is a disease that pork causes. It is very serious. It is accompanied by increasing tense, sometimes hematic, diarrhea, colic, high fever, apathy of powers, painful aches in the knuckles, aridity in the larynx and the respiratory organs, and clear facial intumescence, especially near the eyes, in addition to general impuissance. It may cause death.
In 1983, an English physician discovered this serious disease while he was anatomizing a body of a man who had eaten pork excessively. Owing to consecutive experiments, the physician discovered that the disease had been caused by a worm called Trichina, and lived in the intestines of the mammary animals such as rats, mice, dogs, and pigs. This worm, however, breed in pigs more than other animals, because this parasite animal eats carcasses. A great part of the operative sacs of these worms enters the bodies of those who eat pork. Afterwards, the tissues of those sacs dissolve in the intestines, and the worms begin to spread all over the body to cause the previous diseases.”
Such diseases are commonly widespread in the Western countries since people there have the pork legally. Webney Widexon says, “This disease is common in some provinces in France, Germany, Britain, and Italy. It is approximately nonexistent in the eastern countries, since the religion there bans the pork.” Other physicians state the following matters:
- It is not possible to decide whether a single swine does not carry these worms unless microscopes check each of the organs accurately. This is impossible since this process will lead to the expiration of the pork.
- Each female of these worms gives birth of about 1500 fetuses in the mucus membrane of the intestine of the diseased; thus, millions of these female fetuses distribute all over the organs via the blood circulation. They gather in the intentional muscles to cause tense pains and muscular inflammations that effect the intumescence and the inflexibility of the muscular tissue. This produces tumors that extend to all of the muscles.
This disease is cureless. For technical reasons, no remedy has been effective yet. Pork carries some decayed germs. It also carries the paratyphoid that causes tense toxins associated by taut inflammations in the digestive system. Death may occur in few hours.
The previous horrible damages that are evolved from having pork reveal the deep scope of the Islamic legislation and the genuineness of its prohibition.
The strangled:
Islam has forbidden the meat of the strangled animals. Physicians have proven that strangulation causes instant rotting, and makes the meat tend to blackness and fetor.
The beaten to death:
The meat of the beaten to death animals are also instantly and uneatable.
The killed by a fall:
The meat of animals that are killed due to falling is uneatable because it is decayed and blackened.
The smitten:
The meat of the animals that are killed due to fighting with other animals is uneatable because of its instant decay and blackening.
The devoured:
Islam has also bans the meat of the devoured animals. The wild animals usually have the carcasses that carry the fatal germs that move to the devoured animals to pollute their meat totally. This naturally causes problems to health.
Jurists have discussed the rulings of the forbidden food in details. These meats cause serious problems that may lead to physical collapse and infliction with diseases.
INTOXICANTS
Intoxicants are the base of every crime and misfortune. They deform the human beings and seize their minds to lead to tremendous evils.
Prohibition of intoxicants:
Islam has forbidden the consuming of intoxicants totally, and considered it as one of the major sins and misfortunes. The holy Quran has ordered us to refrain from intoxicants. God says:
Intoxicants and games of chance and sacrificing to stones set up and dividing by arrows are only an uncleanness; the Shaitan’s work. Shun it therefore that you may be successful.
The Prophet (s) said, “God has cursed the wine, its consumer, butler, purchaser, vendor, presser, squeezer, and the one who carries it, and the one to whom it is given.” “Three sorts of people will not be in the Paradise. They are the drunkards, the sorcerers, and those who severe family relations.”
Imam as-Sadiq (a) said, “The drunkards are the same as the pagans are. Intoxicants are the chief of every sin. The consumers of intoxicants are belying God’s Book. If they acceded to God’s Book, they would abstain from the matters that are forbidden there.”
Imam as-Sadiq (a) said, “He who consumes intoxicants his entire life, is not different from the pagans. Those who abstain from intoxicants for God’s fearing, God will admit them to the Paradise and quench their thirst from the pure sealed drink.”
The terrible damages of intoxicants:
The addiction to intoxicants causes physical downfall and destruction. Modern medical writings have mentioned the great damages of intoxicants.
Damages on birth:
The descendants inherit many defects from the intoxicants. The descendants of drunkard parents carry the effects of weak structures and the affliction of serious disorders -the outcome of which is idiocy, general paralysis, or barrenness. It may also lead to the newborns’ death. In addition, the offspring of the drunkards may be afflicted by painful deformities such as inequality of the brain, shortness, and edema, and retardation of mental powers such as frailty of memory, fatuity, and the like. Many physicians, such as Bogonus, Shawn, Stoker, Dingo and others, confirm this fact.
Damages on blood and heart:
The analysts of intoxicants have proven that the effective element of the intoxicants is alcohol or the spirit that easily leaks into the blood without need to disintegrate. The accompanying materials may dissolve in the stomach into a material called aldehyde, and distribute to all of the tissues and organs. A little of that material composes carbonic or acetic acids. As evidence, the physicians say that if an amount of a drunkard’s blood is brought near fire, it will be burnt like wine and spirit.
The intoxicants cause the heart to beat rapidly because of the irregular activity of the cardiac muscles. Withering and disintegration are the results of the reduction of the cardiac activities. It also causes blood pressure on the walls of the blood vessels. This induces the skin to sweat. Some physicians add that the addiction to intoxicants is within the three major causes of arteriosclerosis, which is a serious disease that causes cardiac damage and the explosion of brain arteries. This produces hemiplegia and cureless paralysis.
Damages on liver and kidney:
Intoxicants, which the body absorbs, pass by the liver via the blood stream and cause damages and inflammations of the hepatic cells. When such inflammations become chronic, a swelling and cirrhosis occur in the liver. Doctors Hill and Doth Howard confirm these facts.
Intoxicants cause the reduction of diuresis owing to the extension of the nephric blood vessels. A considerable amount of alcohol comes out from the kidney to cause serious inflammations.
Effects on the stomach:
Physicians have emphasized that alcohol will dissolve into aldehyde and acetic acids when it mixes with the ingredients of the stomach. It also hastens the pepsin and the residuals of perthite and other enzymes. Pepsin is the most important element that helps in digestion. The precipitation of this element hinders the digestive processes and agitates the mucous membrane of the stomach. This creates the extension of the blood vessels and the effluence of the glands of the gastric sap. Addiction to intoxicants ruins the efficiency of the gastric sap and causes dyspepsia. The drunkards always suffer pains in the stomach.
Physicians have stressed that the addiction to intoxicants causes the following diseases:
- Hepatic swelling that leads to edema
- Nephritis that causes general toxemia
- Hemiplegia
- Hysteria
- General nervous disorder
- Pulmonary defects that lead to tuberculosis
- The deficiency of immunity against lethal diseases such as typhoid and meningitis
The addicts to intoxicants cannot resist such diseases or benefit by aids or modern medication, such as penicillin and other antibiotics.
The addiction to intoxicants causes many economic damages. The drunkard will eventually be dragged to wasting and squandering in addition to gambling, fornication, impudence, and other dishonest matters.
Means of controlling the intoxicants:
The malignant defect of consuming the intoxicants is the most influential element of terminating the health and the life. The following are some means of controlling it.
- The ruling authorities should ban the intoxicants categorically and destroy the factories and the devises of filtration in addition to imposing a strict punishment upon the traffickers and merchants of intoxicants.
- All of the print media should be used for broadcasting the terrible damages of the intoxicants.
- Jurists, educationists, and the health organizations should control and expose the damages of the intoxicants.
- Sport clubs should be established so that the youth will practice the various sports and other useful activities.
- Propaganda and commercials of intoxicants should be banned.
4- Refer to Principals of health and life: 298.
Reference: ImamReza.net