Can necessary medication be permissible even if it contains haram ingredients?

Question

I don't mean to bother you. I am not Muslim, but I have deep respect for your faith and work and study with Muslims on an almost daily basis. I have noticed that some of my Muslim friends do not eat certain foods. Can truly necessary medications--insulin, for example--be exempt from Muslim dietary rules? I know God would never want a person to actively harm or kill him- or herself without very, very good reasons. I have learned that people who are ill or very elderly are not expected to fast during Ramadan, and people are asked to go on the hajj only if they can afford it. My true interest is the core of Islam. As a Quaker, I believe any religion that leads a person to find the love and truth within and live it with all people has something precious from which I can learn and enrich my own faith. I was just curious about the dietary laws.

Answer 1

In general, necessity overrides prohibition. This comes from Qur'an verses such as:

... But whoever is forced [by necessity], neither desiring [it] nor transgressing [its limit], then indeed, your Lord is Forgiving and Merciful. -- Qur'an 6:145

Other examples are: Qur'an 5:3, Qur'an 2:173, Qur'an 16:106.

Then the question becomes: when is something necessary enough to override prohibition? Unsurprisingly, there's differences of opinion on the matter.

Islam Q&A describe it as:

Necessity means cases in which a person will be harmed if he does not take the haraam option, in which the harm will effect the five essentials which are: religion, life, honour, reason and wealth.

listing two conditions by Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Uthaymeen:

• We are compelled to do it; there's no alternative.

• The haram thing must meet the necessity.

But other places describe it differently, e.g. Sunnah Online.

When it comes to medication, deciding if we are compelled to do so and if the haram thing would help with the disease appropriately would require medical expertise. Generally, a trustworthy Muslim doctor should help decide:

We would also advise you to consult a trustworthy Muslim doctor; if he tells you that your case requires treatment and that there is no suitable alternative in your case apart from this type of medicine, then there is nothing wrong with you using it, in sha Allah. -- Islam Q&A

Answer 2

The basic rule on using medication with haram substance is that it is forbidden. This is evident from various ahadith such as:

ليس بدواء ولكنه داء

It (wine) is no medicine, but an ailment.

^{— Muslim}

نهى رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم عن الدواء الخبيث

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) prohibited unclean medicine.

^{— Abu Dawud}

إن الله لم يجعل شفاءكم فيما حرم عليكم

Allah did not make your cure in what He made Haram (unlawful) to you.

^{— Bulugh al-Maram}

فتداووا ولا تداووا بحرام

Treat disease but do not treat it with anything that is haraam

^{— Abu Dawud}

Some of the jurists however admit exceptions to this when certain conditions are met, such as:

• When it is necessary to cure the issue, such as when it could lead to death
• When there is no other alternative medicine
• When it is known with reasonable certainty that using the medicine will cure the problem.
• Some have allowed the case where the haram substance is not pure but is mixed with other things

Ref: Mawsoo‘ah al-Fiqhiyyah 1, 2, 3 and islamqa.info

Answer 3

I grab your attention to two Hadeeth from Imam Sadiq PBUH:

1. a person came to Imam Sadiq PBUH and said I have been told by a physician to drink alcohol (as a necessary requirement), may I drink? ... Imam PBUH told him "yes"

2. another person came to Imam Sadiq PBUH and said I have been told by a physician to drink alcohol (as a necessary requirement), but I refused and replied I'm a follower of Imam Sadiq PBUH and I will never drink even a droplet of alcoholic drinks. Do you approve what I did? ... Imam PBUH told her yes, and if you was to do it you would have shame on the Day, as Allah never puts health in something Haram. We the household of the holy prophet PBUH never even look into alcoholic drinks.

There are several points in these two Hadeeth, when looked together, here only pointing to a few of them:

• if the person himself came to the conclusion that he should use something which is commonly regarded as Haram (whether a scientists warned him about it, the community was inclined to, his parents vowed him, he had his own readings and researches, or etc.) then he is allowed to act accordingly, if and only if he really assume a good weight for what he has warned for, fearing about if. This is also true in other situations like e.g. when one comes to the conclusion that fasting is harm for him, and Allah knows best who lies and who is truthful in what he claim.

• Allah never puts health in something Haram, bit it doesn't mean that alcoholic drinks prescribed as a required drug will not work as expected, yes it might do what is expected by the physician, but Allah the Wise knows every other effects that a Haram thing can have on our lives as well. People may survive of a well and fall into another deeper well instead, though perhaps not immediately and say after a passage of some few days, months or years.

• trusting in Allah is better for us if we would care, He is not unaware of His creatures, He always know and witnesses in what situation we are, and He never makes us bear the load we cannot bear, and last but by no means least, every wrong decision that we make will probably change the path Allah has preferred for us (and I said probably because Allah doesn't ruin the person's path of guidance by only one wrong decision in perhaps most cases), so that it would be a point for regret at the Day when we see how we could have been advanced and grown in Dunya but we didn't:

مَنْ يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَلْ لَهُ مَخْرَجًا

whoever fears Allah - He will make for him a way out

إِنَّهُ مَنْ يَتَّقِ وَ يَصْبِرْ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُضِيعُ أَجْرَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ

Indeed, he who fears Allah and is patient, then indeed, Allah does not allow to be lost the reward of those who do good

وَ هُوَ مَعَكُمْ أَيْنَ مَا كُنْتُمْ وَ اللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ

And He is with you wheresoever ye may be. And Allah sees well all that ye do

لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَ عَلَيْهَا مَا اكْتَسَبَتْ

On no soul doth Allah Place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns

لَهُ مُعَقِّبَاتٌ مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَ مِنْ خَلْفِهِ يَحْفَظُونَهُ مِنْ أَمْرِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّيٰ يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنْفُسِهِمْ

For each one are successive [angels] before and behind him who protect him by the decree of Allah. Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves

وَ أَنْذِرْهُمْ يَوْمَ الْحَسْرَةِ إِذْ قُضِيَ الْأَمْرُ وَ هُمْ فِي غَفْلَةٍ وَ هُمْ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ

And warn them, [O Muhammad], of the Day of Regret, when the matter will be concluded; and [yet], they are in [a state of] heedlessness, and they do not believe