It Is Allah Who Cures

Years ago, a close friend came to me, feeling distressed because she was about to get married in less than a month's time but had skin problem around the chest. She wanted to present herself to her husband with good-looking skin. She had tried various brands of cream but before she finished using any particular bottle, she tend to lose hope and would change to another.

I didn't answer her question immediately when she asked me what to do... simply because I didn't have the answer to her problem. What I did was, I related to her the story of Prophet Musa a.s. He was one of the fortunate beings who could converse directly with Allah, our creator.

It so happened that Musa a.s. once had a toothache. He asked Allah what to do to solve his toothache problem. Allah told him to get such and such kind of leaves and chew them. He did what Allah asked him to do... and, as a result, he was cured. The next time he had another toothache problem, Musa a.s. went to get the same kind of leaves and repeated exactly like what he did the last time. This time he found out that he wasn't cured. He asked Allah why was it this time it didn't cure him like last time to which Allah answered, the last time Musa a.s. had the toothache, he had asked help for the remedy from Allah, and Allah granted his wish. This time, however, he didn't ask help from Allah but depended solely on the leaves.

The leaves were the 'asbab' of his cure. It was Allah who made the cure possible. It is Allah, and solely Allah, The One and Only God who can answer all our pleads, hopes, aspirations, wishes ... call it what you may. Musa learnt his lesson well. And so did my friend. By the end of my story, she realized that she had acted like Musa a.s., putting her trust too much on the medicines and forgot to ask help from Allah.

Nowadays, each time I go to the clinic, I can't help but smile whenever I read the label written on the plastic wrappings : "Kami hanya berikhtiar. Allah yang menyembuhkan" (We can only ikhtiar. It is Allah who cures).