FIKIH IBADAH NAKES, ORANG SAKIT DAN KESEHATAN KONTEMPORER - KAJIAN RUTIN BULANAN RC (OKTOBER 2026)

Summary

The session introduces Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) relevant to healthcare workers and patients. The speaker presents it as a practical subject: medical staff need to understand both their professional duties and how Islamic guidance applies to worship, treatment, and patient care. The talk surveys a broad range of health-related fiqh topics, then focuses mainly on illness, complaints about illness, purification, and prayer for sick people.

Main Themes and Topics

Illness and Its Religious Meaning

• Illness can be a test and a reminder of human limits, and may call for patience, prayer, and trust in God.
• The speaker advises against cursing or railing against illness. Using fever as an example, he notes that medically it is a bodily response rather than a disease in itself.
• Crying from grief is acceptable; the speaker distinguishes it from angry reactions such as shouting or throwing things.
• He recommends turning to God in prayer first, while also allowing people to share necessary health information with family or others who need to know.

A Broad Agenda for Health-Related Fiqh

The speaker’s book covers Islamic perspectives on illness, medical treatment, medicine ingredients and manufacturing, and cases involving forbidden or doubtful substances. Other subjects include:

• Patients who decline treatment and emergency decisions.
• Worship during illness and the responsibilities of healthcare workers.
• Workplace questions, such as prayer during long procedures, fasting during emergencies, combining or shortening prayers, professional income and gifts, clinical practice arrangements, and health insurance, including BPJS.
• Contemporary medical examples, including cosmetic procedures, transplants, ostomies, urinary incontinence, and emergency medicines that may contain prohibited ingredients.

These are presented as topics requiring case-specific fiqh analysis, rather than one-size-fits-all rulings.

Guidance Discussed in Detail

Purification for Sick People

• Use water when reasonably possible. The speaker cautions against resorting to tayammum too quickly when some parts of the body can still be washed.
• If a limb is in a cast or bandaged:
  • Wash the parts that can safely be washed.
  • For the covered part, the speaker recommends wiping over the cast or dressing with a wet hand rather than immediately abandoning ablution altogether.
• He applies the same general approach to other covered or injured areas: preserve the parts of ablution that can be performed safely and adapt the rest.

Tayammum

The speaker describes tayammum as a concession for someone who cannot use water, even if water is available—for example, when using it is medically unsuitable.

He notes differing scholarly views about what counts as suitable earth or dust. In his view, a surface reasonably believed to have dust on it may suffice. He also mentions that some hospitals provide clean dust specifically for this purpose.

The method he favors, based on a hadith he cites, is:

1. Strike or place the hands on suitable dust once.
2. Blow or shake off excess dust.
3. Wipe the face.
4. Wipe the backs of the hands.

He presents this as a brief, manageable method, especially for weak or unwell patients. He acknowledges that other scholarly descriptions differ, including on how far the hands should be wiped.

If a patient cannot perform tayammum independently, a caregiver may assist by helping the patient make contact with the dust and wipe the face and hands. In the speaker’s view, one tayammum may be used for multiple prayers while it remains valid; it ceases to apply if the patient regains the ability to use water or another invalidating condition occurs.

Prayer for Patients

Patients should pray according to their abilities:

• Standing if possible; otherwise sitting, including on a chair or on the floor in a suitable seated posture.
• If sitting is not possible, praying while lying down, such as on the back or on the side.
• If ordinary movements are impossible, signaling with the head, then the eyes, and ultimately praying inwardly if even those movements cannot be made.

Facing the qibla should be attempted when feasible, such as by adjusting the patient’s position or bed. If that cannot be managed, the speaker says the patient should not be burdened with what is beyond their ability. He emphasizes that facing the general direction is sufficient in his view; patients need not be made anxious by trying to calculate an exact angle.

Healthcare Workers, Travel, and Prayer

The speaker notes that staff may face practical questions during long operations, emergencies, Ramadan shifts, or travel, including whether to combine or shorten prayers and how to maintain prayer while working.

In response to a question about trains and planes, he recommends using available water for ablution rather than assuming tayammum is necessary. He suggests conserving water and mentions wiping over footwear and, in some cases, a head covering. If water cannot be used and a valid means of tayammum is available, he says that option may be used.

These points are presented as the speaker’s guidance; the session does not work through every work or travel scenario in detail.

Blood, Uncertain Clothing, and Ongoing Discharge

• Scholars differ over whether human blood is impure. The speaker’s own view is that ordinary human blood is not impure, while he treats menstrual blood separately and notes that blood or discharge exiting through the genital route may have different rulings.
• For clothing that is known to be clean but is only suspected of having been splashed, he invokes the principle that certainty is not removed by doubt: the clothing remains treated as clean unless impurity is actually established.
• For patients with persistent discharge who wear diapers, he draws an analogy with rulings for istihada (irregular bleeding). He advises using protection and renewing ablution for each prayer, while recognizing that the person may still pray.

Other Lessons Emphasized

• Patients differ in their abilities and tolerance. Practical capacity should be assessed individually rather than assuming that every patient with the same diagnosis can do the same things.
• Healthcare workers should support patients’ worship and emotional needs, particularly when patients are seriously ill or vulnerable.
• Repeated exposure to illness and death can dull a caregiver’s sensitivity; the speaker encourages staff to preserve compassion and remember the wider social value of their work.
• Discussions of medicines, emergencies, and treatment decisions should account for both medical circumstances and relevant Islamic principles. The speaker stresses that contemporary medical developments require continuing study.

Speakers and Sources

• Opening host/MC: Unnamed; introduces the event and speakers.
• Qur’an reciter: Mas Salman; leads the group recitation of Al-Fatihah and Surah Hud, verses 51–60.
• Main presenter: Ustaz Dr. Raihanul Bah(r)en (name rendered inconsistently in the auto-generated subtitles), a clinical pathology specialist and author of the e-book discussed in the session.
• Audience questioners: Unnamed healthcare workers, including a nurse, ask about prayer during illness and travel, uncertain clothing, and patient capability.
• Sources referenced by the presenter: The Qur’an, hadith, Islamic legal principles, and his own book on worship for healthcare workers and sick people.