A
47-year-old housewife who recently started using Islamic medicine
emerged tearfully from an exorcism, speaking of newfound tranquility
after a turbulent period. Also, her abdominal pains are finally easing.
Suratmi,
who suffers from an ovarian cyst, has been taking a mix of herbal
medicine harking back to the dawn of Islam, as well as undergoing
exorcisms at a clinic in Jakarta.
She is among a growing number of
Muslims in Southeast Asia turning away from Western medical care in
favor of al-Tibb al-Nabawi, or Medicine of the Prophet, a loosely
defined discipline based on the Quran and other Islamic texts and
traditional herbal remedies.
"I heard that so many people have
been healed, so I hope Allah can help me. I followed His path here,"
said Suratmi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.
The
Islamic medicine trend is often associated with fundamentalists who
charge that Western, chemically laced prescriptions aim to poison
Muslims or defile them with insulin and other medicines made from pigs.
Members of terrorist groups have been involved in Islamic medicine as
healers and sellers, while some clinics are used as recruiting grounds
for Islamist causes.
But the bulk of those seeking out Islamic
clinics, hospitals and pharmacies, appear to be moderate Muslims,
reflecting a rise in Islamic consciousness worldwide.
"Islamic
medicine carries a cachet that, by taking it, you are reinforcing your
faith - and the profits go to Muslims," says Sidney Jones, an expert on
Islam in Southeast Asia with the International Crisis Group.
Islamic
medicine, toiletries and beauty products have become a big business
with a customer base in Southeast Asia alone of roughly 250 million
Muslims.
The industry's advertising is as gimmicky as any in the West.
Capitalizing
on the popularity of U.S. President Barack Obama, who spent four of his
childhood years in Indonesia, one company produces a popular
anti-stress concoction called Obahama - in a corruption of an Indonesian
phrase for herbal medicine.
Siwak-F, also exported to the Middle East, is hailed as "toothpaste just like the Prophet used to use."
The industry also is going high-tech.
Malaysia's
Petronas University of Technology is developing an application for
mobile devices to query what Islamic remedies are recommended for
anything from toothaches to depression, says Hanita Daud, one of the
developers.
Like much of Islamic medicine, it's grounded on the
saying that "Allah did not create a disease for which he did not also
create a cure." This is taken from Prophet Mohammed's teachings known as
hadiths, which along with the Quran make frequent references to
diseases, remedies and healthy living.
What is termed classical
Islamic medicine developed in medieval times when it far outshone that
in Christian Europe, and exerted a significant influence on it.
Practitioners
say many ingredients in today's treatments were used in Mohammed's
time, including honey, olive oil, bee pollen, dates and black caraway -
which one ad claims is "a cure for every disease but death."
In
Indonesia, traditional medicine really took off after a government
promotional campaign in 2009, says Brury Machendra, owner of the Insani
Herbal Clinic in suburban Jakarta where Suratmi and up to 400 other
patients per month seek treatment.
Only one such clinic existed in
the Depok suburb two years ago, but now there are 20, with 70 others
waiting for government permits.
Machendra, who also is
secretary-general of the Traditional Herbal Medicine Association of
Indonesia, says most Indonesian Muslims don't doubt conventional
medicine. But he says Indonesia's health services are so poor and
expensive that many people seek out alternatives.
His clinic
offers herbal medicine, a bloodletting treatment known as bekam and
exorcisms in which a white-gloved therapist places a hand on a patient's
head while chanting verses from the Quran.
An exorcism costs
about $12, while Machendra's government-certified herbal products such
as the anticancer BioCarnoma and anti-diabetes BioGlukol go for no more
than $5 for 60 capsules.
He acknowledges that clinics such as his
benefit from traditional Muslim rules forbidding certain ingredients and
that many fundamentalists "tell people not to go to infidel doctors and
say that buying Western medicine is forbidden."
Jemaah Islamiyah,
an al-Qaida-linked militant network that is essentially banned in
Indonesia, is believed to have links to some herbal manufacturers and
operate many of the country's Islamic medicine clinics, International
Crisis Group says.
But Jones says the clinics are aimed more at building solidarity among Islamists rather than recruiting militants.
Some doctors are trying to bring Muslim elements into the Western tradition.
"We
practice evidence-based medicine but we incorporate the spiritual for
both our patients and staff," says Dr. Ishak Mas'ud, director of Al
Islam hospital in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.
This approach, he says, allows such normally taboo practices as abortions and pig heart transplants if these can save lives.
"I
don't agree with some clinics which say that, 'This is Islamic, so it
has to be good,' " says Ishak, who was trained in Australia and Great
Britain.
The 60-bed hospital, which attracts patients as far away
as Somalia and Saudi Arabia, stresses holistic diagnoses, refrains from
giving definite prognoses since "death is in the hands of Allah," and
believes it is wrong to practice medicine with profit in mind, he says.
Fees are 20 to 30 percent lower than at most Malaysian hospitals.
"I
am just the instrument of Allah and doctors must tell their patients
this," Ishak says. "You know doctors can be arrogant. They will tell you
that they can cure you in five days and five days later you can be six
feet underground. It's not me that is healing. We are not powerful. In
Islamic medicine, this is the key, the main concept."
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