Bismillah
AsalamuAlaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh,
Fever wipes out one’s sins and rids his body from dead substances and germs. It is a blessing in disguise.
The Prophet (Saw)said:
“When a believer gets sick or feverish, it is like metal when put on fire, the bad is gone and the good remains.” [Al-Bayhaqi]
He (Saw) also describes the intensity of fever by saying:
“Fever is coal from hell, get rid of it by using cold water.” [Ibn Maajah]
The Prophet (Saw) forbade the cursing of fever by saying:
“Do not curse a fever because it abolishes sins like fire abolishes dirt from iron.” [Ibn Maajah]
A bacterial or viral infection usually raises the temperature of a person, antibiotics are useless with viral infections, such as the influenza and the common cold, although the patient might sweat and have a very high fever.
Then what is the cure?
The Prophet (Saw) tells us to reduce the fever with water. The same is still applied today. Putting cold pads on a patient’s forehead is still used in a lot of hospitals and by doctors even though fever reducing medicines are abundant, like aspirin, paracetamol (or acetaminophen, which is the active ingredient in Tylenol) and others.
Using water to reduce fevers is not limited to using cold pads. Drinking a lot of fluids is also helpful. This is also understood from the wordings of the Prophetic narration:
“cool it with water.” Water is either what the patient drinks, what is given intravenously or what the patient puts on his face or body to cool the fever.
We have seen a lot of patients where fever reducing medicines (antipyretics) were not effective with their rising fever. At the same time, cold water had an immediate effect. That’s why pediatricians advise parents to take a child’s clothes off and give a lot of fluids if a fever occurs. An antipyretic might also be give like paracetamol. Aspirin has been banned for children under 12 years of age.
Imaam Ibn Al-Qayyim said: “I remember once, when I was feverish, a poet cursing the fever, saying.
The sin purifier has visited and left.
How evil it is when visiting and when leaving
She asked while getting ready to leave
What do you want?
I replied, to never come again.
I said, shame on him, he cursed what the Prophet (saw) forbade to be cursed. If he had said: Greetings to it while visiting and while
The severe-sin cleanser has visited.
Leaving
She asked while getting ready to leave… What do you want?
I replied, to not leave.
It would have been better for him and it still would have left.”
Recent scientific studies have shown that this leukocyte pyrogens cause fever by making a substance called prostaglandin in the local glands in the area of the hypothalamus. When the growth of this kind of prostaglandin is inhibited, by using medicines, the fever is reduced. This explains how aspirin reduces fever. It inhibits the growth of prostaglandin and prevents its making.
The Prophet, sallallahu alayhe wa sallam, said:
“For every ailment, there is a cure. If the cure reaches the ailment, it is cured by the will of Allaah.” [Muslim]
That explains the known phenomena that aspirin does not reduce the temperature of a normal person who is not feverish. That is because he does not have these endogenous in his body to work on the hypothalamus.
WalaykumSalaam Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.