Ethics Of Healthy Discipline From Islamic Point Of View

Abstract

Since its birth, Islam has prioritized health, placing it as second in importance to faith. In fact, embedded in the very essence of the divine law is the protection of the five essential needs of faith, life, progeny, property and mind. And, with only a little reflection, it becomes apparent that 60% of these essentials (three out of the five), namely life, progeny and mind, cannot be adequately safeguarded without the protection and preservation of health. Health is therefore an essential condition for the preservation of life which is why Islam has prized it so highly. God and the Prophet provided guidance through the divine law and countless hadiths in this direction. However, it must not be forgotten that with great health lies great responsibility: the promotion and protection of health not only concerns one’s own self but also that of others and of the environment. Islam places equal emphasis on health promotion and health protection. Health promotion in Islam includes everything that protects and enhances human health, such as personal hygiene, nutrition, marriage and respect for the body, while health protection includes the avoidance of infectious diseases, protective measures against accidental injury, abstention from all harmful substances, such as alcohol, illicit drugs and tobacco, the responsibility of parents, healthy environment, protection of agriculture, role of the community and protection from infection. Islam therefore has an integrated holistic approach to health that we aspire to successfully achieve. Today, people strive and struggle to unfold and uphold many of the issues that they have identified as important elements to health as a human right, while Islam covered all these so-called, newly-founded health aspects centuries ago. Islam advocated for all the modern, man-made concepts aimed at the promotion and protection of health long before people began to acknowledge their importance. In reality, only with the turn of the 20th century did humanity begin to fathom and grasp the importance of health as a human right. Only then did people recognize that every human being’s right to health must be indisputably acknowledged and be made a universal, indivisible and independent right. And, although it has taken various declarations to capture some of man’s rights to health, we are still lacking in some areas as the rights of the human body have still not been captured. The value of Islam must therefore be acknowledged and recognized; we must allow ourselves to delve into its very heart to learn and be guided by all that it offers in this regard.