Is There Specific Supplications That a Doctor Can Say?

Answered by Shaykh Jamir Meah

Question: Assalamu alaykum

I am doctor by profession. I wanted to know are there specific supplications before seeing patients that I can read early in the day? how could I help the patients to the best of my ability in the Islamic way?

Answer: Wa’alaykum assalam. I pray you’re well.

God has told to strive for excellence in all things. The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Verily, Allah has prescribed excellence in all things.’ [Muslim].

What this means is that anything we turn our attention to, whether at home, work, or in our religious life, we should strive to be the best we can. By doing this, we are doing things ‘the Islamic way’, even if they do not seem to us as being directly connected to their faith.

The best way for a doctor to help patients is by first ensuring that their intention is sincere, secondly, working earnestly and diligently in the profession and giving each patient their due right, and thirdly, turning to Allah and thanking Him for everything that happens.

Intention

Each day, make the right intention for the day’s work ahead of you.

For a detailed list of intentions that a health care professional can make each day, please refer to this answer:

How Do I Make My Nursing Career as Worship?

Also, at Fajr or before, ask Allah for the good of the day and seek protection from the evil of the day.

Work diligently

Treating patients is a trust (amana) and to fulfil a trust one must work diligently and cautiously. This means learning and practicing the vocation well, applying it with conscientiousness, and treating each patient with due care and consideration. This can be very challenging in busy hospital wards, but one must always try to do their best.

By doing things this way, and with the right intention, one’s professional work becomes worship and a source of great reward.

The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Whoever relieves a Muslim of some worldly distress, Allah will relieve him of some of the distress of the Day of Resurrection … Allah will help His slave so long as His slave helps his brother.’ [Ibn Majah]

Turning to Allah in all matters

No matter what success or failure we experience in our profession, we must always turn to Allah in gratefulness and reliance. Allah alone is the healer, not us or the medicine we prescribe.

Gratitude to Allah can be shown through continuing to work hard and treating patients attentively, with the correct intention, spending one’s income on the obligatory rights one must fulfil, spending on the lawful only, and in charity.

Turning to Allah and having reliance on Him can be achieved through constantly making dhikr of Allah throughout the day and supplicating to Him at all times.

Supplications

Along with the intentions we have mentioned, one can make their own du’a to Allah, for help, assistance, reliance in all matters, for the health and recovery of patients, for success, for acceptance of one’s efforts etc. There are general du’as that have been handed down to us that you can use throughout the day for your patients,

أَذْهِبِ الْبَأْسَ رَبَّ النَّاسِ وَاشْفِ أَنْتَ الشَّافِي لَا شِفَاءَ إِلَّا شِفَاؤُكَ شِفَاءٌ لَا يُغَادِرُ سَقَمَاً

‘O Lord of the people, remove this pain and cure it, You are the one who cures and there is no one besides You who can cure, grant such a cure that no illness remains’ [al Bukhari, Muslim]

Further supplications can be found in this answer:

Prophetic Supplications to Cure Illnesses

I wish you all the best in your work.

Warmest salams,
[Shaykh] Jamir Meah

Shaykh Jamir Meah grew up in Hampstead, London. In 2007, he traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he spent nine years studying the Islamic sciences on a one-to-one basis under the foremost scholars of the Ribaat, Tarim, with a main specialization and focus on Shafi’i fiqh. In early 2016, he moved to Amman, Jordan, where he continues advanced studies in a range of Islamic sciences, as well as teaching. Jamir is a qualified homeopath.