al-Daa wal-Dawaa = al-Jawab al-Kafi
- Author died
- 751 AH
- Editions
- t Dar al-Marifa · t. Ataat al-Ilm
al-Daa wal-Dawaa (also known as al-Jawab al-Kafi li-man sa'ala 'an al-dawa' al-shafi; The Disease and the Cure, or The Sufficient Answer for Whoever Inquired About the Healing Remedy) is a treatise by the Hanbali scholar Ibn al-Qayyim (691–751 AH / 1292–1350 CE) addressing spiritual afflictions, the psychological and religious consequences of sins, and the remedies for obsessive infatuation .
Title and Attribution
The author did not provide a title in the opening of the text, nor did he include a standard authorial preface, as he commenced directly with answering the legal and spiritual query submitted to him in the manner of muftis . The earliest bibliographical reference to the book appears under the title al-Da' wal-Dawa' by his student Ibn Rajab, a designation retained by subsequent biographers including Shams al-Din al-Dawudi, Ibn al-'Imad, and al-Shawkani .
The work was first printed in India in 1357 AH under the rhyming title al-Jawab al-Kafi li-man sa'ala 'an al-dawa' al-shafi, after which both titles circulated in print . In Cairo in 1377 AH, Muhammad Muhyi al-Din 'Abd al-Hamid published an edition titled al-Da' wal-Dawa', while Mahmud 'Abd al-Wahhab Fayed published an edition in the same year titled al-Jawab al-Kafi . While some catalogers mistakenly listed both titles as two separate works, commentators have confirmed that they designate the same text . In one manuscript copy preserved in the Hijazi Library collection, a scribal error attributed the treatise to Ibn al-Jawzi instead of Ibn al-Qayyim .
Occasion of Composition
The treatise originated as an extensive fatwa in response to a petitioner who wrote:
"What do the scholars and leaders of the religion say regarding a man afflicted by a calamity, who knows that if it continues it will ruin his worldly life and his hereafter, and who has strived to repel it by every means yet it only increases in burning intensity? What is the recourse to repel it, and what is the path to uncover it?"
Ibn al-Qayyim opened his reply with the hadith from Sahih al-Bukhari: مَا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ دَاءً إِلَّا أَنْزَلَ لَهُ شِفَاءً ("God has not sent down any disease without also sending down for it a cure") and the hadith in Sahih Muslim: لِكُلِّ دَاءٍ دَوَاءٌ فَإِذَا أَصَابَ دَوَاءُ الدَّاءِ بَرَأَ بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ ("Every disease has a remedy, and when the remedy hits the disease, it is cured by God's permission") . In keeping with his pedagogical habit of providing exhaustive, structured answers that addressed related and underlying causes beyond the bare minimum required by the questioner, the response developed into a full-length book .
Contents and Structure
Although the petitioner did not name the specific nature of his affliction, Ibn al-Qayyim addressed it by first diagnosing the overarching disease of sin and heart corruption, before identifying the root issue as obsessive infatuation ('ishq al-suwar) .
The core subjects discussed in the book include:
- Supplication and Divine Decree: The efficacy of supplication (du'a'), its conditions, and how taking spiritual causes and remedies does not contradict submission to divine decree .
- The Effects of Sins: The psychological, physical, and spiritual harms of disobedience, which the author compared to the effect of poisons on physical bodies , detailing seventy-four distinct harmful consequences of sins upon the soul and society .
- Classification of Punishments and Sins: The division of legal penalties into execution, amputation, and flogging, alongside existential punishments ('uqubat qadariyya) that afflict the heart and body . He categorizes sins into four classes: lordly (malakiyya), satanic (shaytaniyya), predatory (sab'iyya), and bestial (bahimiyya) .
- The Portals of Sin: An analysis of the four primary conduits leading to sin: glances (lahazat), fleeting thoughts (khatarat), utterances (lafazat), and steps (khutuwat) .
- The Illness and Remedy of Infatuation: A detailed analysis of obsessive infatuation ('ishq), explaining that an empty heart becomes subservient to created forms when devoid of sincere monotheistic love for God . He presents two main avenues of cure: preventing the affliction before it occurs through lowering the gaze and inward vigilance, and uprooting it after its onset through sincere repentance, occupying the soul with outward and inward worship, and turning entirely to God .
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