What Is Being Said About This Hadith in the Arabic, Urdu, Persian and Your Own Language Worlds

When a hadith spreads across many languages, a false impression can easily form — "Since it is being said everywhere, surely it is universally accepted." In the second part of this series, the hadith «Dawu mardakum bis-sadaqah» ("Treat your sick with sadaqah") was examined in detail for its authenticity in the Arabic world. This article looks at that discussion a little more broadly — at what is being said about the same hadith or the same subject in the Urdu, Persian, your-own-language and English worlds, and in YouTube content in various languages. The purpose is just one thing — to show the reader that when a religious claim seems "universal," a closer look reveals how much it is actually bound within the limits of one particular language, school of thought or tradition.

One point needs to be made clear from the start — the research for this article was done through ordinary web searches and reading pages, and it was not possible to go through every corner of the relevant world of each language. So wherever any information is unverified or incomplete, this has been stated clearly — gaps have not been filled with guesswork.

Arabic: The Original Source, with Opinions Divided Within Itself

The second part of this series has already shown in detail that there is a difference of opinion about this hadith within the Arabic hadith world itself. Let us recall it briefly — Shaykh al-Albani (may Allah have mercy on him) called the short phrase «داووا مرضاكم بالصدقة» "hasan li-ghayrihi" (acceptable with the support of other chains) in Sahih al-Jami' (3358) and Sahih at-Targhib, but he himself called the full compiled version (which adds "Hisnu amwalikum biz-zakat" and "Istaqbilu amwajal bala'i biddu'a'") weak. On the other hand, the Permanent Committee for Fatwas in Saudi Arabia (Al-Lajnah ad-Da'imah, fatwa no. 18369) said directly — "The mentioned hadith is not sahih." Ibn al-Jawzi, Ibn al-Qaysarani, Abu Hatim ar-Razi, al-Haythami and Bayhaqi himself also rejected it. In other words, the Arabic world itself does not agree on this hadith — and this is the first foundation for understanding the discussion in the other languages.

Urdu: The Same Hadith, but with Its Own Critique of the Chain

In the Urdu-speaking world this same hadith is in circulation — Sahih al-Jami' 3358, as a narration of Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) or Abu Umamah al-Bahili (may Allah be pleased with him) through the Daylami chain, in the Urdu translation in the sentence "اپنے مریضوں کا صدقے کے ذریعے علاج کرو" ("Treat your sick through sadaqah"). In other words, the Urdu world has not invented any new hadith — it is translating and explaining the same Arabic hadith.

But there is a genuinely independent contribution here — the Muhaddis Forum (Mohaddis Forum), an Urdu-speaking forum of the Ahl-e-Hadith/Salafi school, has itself held a detailed critical discussion of this hadith's chain. In a thread titled "صدقہ سے علاج کرو، کیا یہ حدیث صحیح ہے؟" (Treat with sadaqah — is this hadith sahih?), the forum's members judged it "da'if" (weak), and some "da'if jiddan" (extremely weak). One participant of the forum ("Kifayatullah") also pointed out the weakness of a specific narrator — one narrator, named "Musa ibn Umair," was described as "dhahibul hadith, kadhdhab" (his hadith is abandoned, a liar); some other narrators were called "munkarul hadith" (unacceptable/rejected narrator). This is not a mere translation of some Arabic ruling — it is an independent analysis of the chain done in the Urdu language itself, which is directly consistent with this series' aim of "honesty in evidence."

An important difference is also noticeable here, which may be unfamiliar to a reader in Bangladesh — in the Urdu world, a real methodological difference between two major schools of Sunni Islam shows up here. A major institution of the Deobandi school, Jamia Uloom-e-Islamia Banuri Town, in a fatwa (29 December 2022) gave direct practical advice without raising any question about the chain of the hadith — how much sadaqah to give and how to give it. In other words, they proceeded by taking the hadith as established. On the other hand, the Muhaddis Forum of the Ahl-e-Hadith/Salafi school questioned the very chain of the hadith. Both are Sunni schools, yet there is a real difference in the method of verifying hadith — this is important for a Bangladeshi reader to understand, because "the same Islam, different opinions" does not always mean the Sunni-Shia divide; there can be methodological differences within the Sunni schools too.

A popular story was also found in the Urdu world, which needs to be mentioned here with caution. In another thread of the Muhaddis Forum, the story of a Damascus physician named "Dr. Isa Marzuqi" is circulating — it is claimed that after being afflicted with cancer and informed that the doctors gave him hope of living no more than a few weeks, he remembered this hadith and gave his savings as sadaqah, and later became completely well. The source of this story could not be clearly verified — one source links it with a book called "Sunehri Awraq" by Shaykh Abdul Malik Mujahid, but the actual existence of Dr. Isa Marzuqi, his medical records, or the original source of this incident — none of it could be verified with certainty. This story should therefore never be presented as a "proven event" — it is merely an unverified, popular da'wah story, just as many stories in the book were marked in the earlier parts of this series as "testimony, not proof."

It is worth noting that no dedicated article on this particular hadith was found in the Urdu edition of IslamQA (islamqa.info/ur) — this is a real gap, especially since IslamQA is an influential platform of the Salafi school.

Persian: An Entirely Different Chain of Hadith

What was found in the Persian-language world is the most important thing for an ordinary reader in Bangladesh, and at the same time the thing that most needs to be explained carefully. Most of the content found in Persian about being cured of illness through sadaqah (hawzah.net, Shafaqna, Wikishia, hadithlib.com) — all of these are sources of the Shia (Imamiyyah/Twelver) tradition. And the important point is — these sources are not quoting the Sunni hadith discussed in the rest of this series (through Abu Umamah al-Bahili, Sahih al-Jami' 3358). Rather, they are quoting an entirely different chain — in the name of Imam Musa al-Kazim (peace be upon him), narrated through the Shias' own hadith collections al-Kafi and Bihar al-Anwar.

For a reader unfamiliar with the differences between the Sunni and Shia hadith collections, it needs to be said clearly — in Shia Islam, the words of the Imams of the "Ahl al-Bayt" (such as Imam Musa al-Kazim, Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq, Imam Ali) are also accepted as a religious source equivalent to the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and their own hadith collections (al-Kafi, Bihar al-Anwar, Uyun Akhbar ar-Rida) are different from collections such as the Sunni Sahih Bukhari and Muslim. So this "hadith of Imam Musa al-Kazim" found in the Persian world cannot be used as evidence for this Sunni-school series, because it comes from an entirely different hadith tradition, and is information quoting a different chain — it is not a Persian translation of the same hadith. This is not a matter of sectarian argument, but a real difference that is important to understand — just because a claim is "said in Islam" does not mean it is Sunni evidence, especially when the chain comes from a different tradition.

However, one Sunni source was also found in the Persian world — sunnatonline.org, which describes itself as an "Ahl as-Sunnah information center." On this site, exactly the same hadith from Sahih al-Jami' (3358) and the Abu Umamah al-Bahili chain is quoted — in other words, the Persian Sunni world relies on the same original chain as the Arabic and Urdu Sunni worlds, and has not produced any different Persian evidence.

The most valuable Persian-language discovery, however, came from a Shia-affiliated news agency, and this needs to be mentioned here honestly — because its value lies not in the religious identity of its source, but in its reasoning. In Shafaqna, a Shia-affiliated news agency of the city of Qom, an interview with a researcher named Majid Rezaei was published under the title "One Hadith, One Explanation: Does Sadaqah Cure All Illnesses?" (15 October 2020). He warned in clear words — "No fixed relationship can be established between the amount of sadaqah and recovery from illness" — that is, if anyone claims "giving this much sadaqah will make a cancer patient one hundred percent well," he clearly rejected this kind of mechanical claim. In his view, this kind of hadith refers to the effect of good deeds on the moral and spiritual condition of society and the individual, and is not a mechanical medical guideline.

This warning is being mentioned here as a caution worth attention regardless of its source — it should be seen not as a citable religious authority for Sunni practice, but as a general, epistemic caution from a reasonable commentator — and it is noteworthy that this same caution has come up repeatedly in this series' own research too: no claim such as "giving a fixed amount of sadaqah brings certain recovery from illness" has been found in any reliable Sunni source either.

Your Own Language: Good News and an Important Gap

This research on the world of your own language has two most practical findings — one piece of good news and one important gap.

The good news is — a direct search was run on the eighteen incidents of this original Arabic book (من عجائب العلاج بالصدقة) using four or five specific phrases in your own language, and no match was found in any of them. That is, as far as this research could confirm, the stories of this particular book are not already in circulation in your own language — this series is probably the first presentation of this particular book in your own language. (An honest limitation also needs to be stated here — this check was done through ordinary web searches, and search engines cannot always catch what is in circulation on platforms like Facebook groups or Telegram.)

The important gap is this: in this research, no scholar or established site in your own language (IslamHouse, HadithBD.com, IslamQA) could be found that had previously offered any critical discussion of the authenticity of this particular hadith. The few sites in your own language where this hadith is mentioned all quote it without discrimination, saying nothing of any difference of opinion. For example, in an older (2018) compilation post on myjaalhaq.blogspot.com titled "9 Amazing Incidents of Zakat and Sadaqah", this teaching is mentioned through Hasan al-Basri, with no hadith number and no discussion of the chain of narration. The hadith is also quoted in a series on sistersforuminislam.com ("Disease and the Patient – What Does Islam Say! – 16"), with a reference to Sahih at-Targhib 744 (which is in fact the correct reference), but even there there is no mention of this sahih/weak debate.

It is right to see this positively rather than negatively. It means that this series (especially the second part, in which a full authenticity check of the hadith was carried out) is probably, for the first time in your own language, giving readers this complete picture — a picture that was already partly available in English (IslamQA English) and in Urdu (Muhaddith Forum), but was not available in your own language.

English: Independent Confirmation and a Classical Quotation

Two important points have emerged from the English-language world. First, the English edition of IslamQA (in the article titled "Do Muslims Have to Seek Medical Treatment?") independently confirmed exactly the same information found in the Arabic sources: the Lajnah Daimah (the Permanent Committee for Fatwas) ruled this hadith to be "not sahih", although they also said there is no problem with a sick person giving sadaqah, because sadaqah is in general a good practice for drawing near to Allah. It is important that this information was found in the same way in both Arabic and English sources, two different languages. It means this is not the misrepresentation of one translator, but truly the documented position of the Lajnah Daimah, which remains the same even when the language changes.

Second, in an English-language commentary article by Masjid Darussalam (on hadith no. 5669 of al-Jami' as-Saghir), a quotation was found from a classical scholar, Imam al-Halimi (may Allah have mercy on him), who hundreds of years ago said exactly the caution given in the fourth part of this series: sadaqah is not a substitute for treatment, but a support. In his words (in English translation): "It may be that Allah has decreed that if someone seeks treatment he will recover, and if he does not, the illness will overwhelm him and he will die." That is, the principle "sadaqah is not a replacement for treatment" is not a modern caution; rather, a classical scholar spoke of this same balance centuries ago — which is directly consistent with the discussion in the fourth part of this series.

YouTube: The Question Is Raised Directly Only in Arabic

In video-based content, a clear pattern has been seen: multiple videos were found only in Arabic whose titles directly raise the question of this hadith's authenticity. For example: Shaykh Mustafa al-Adawi's video titled "How Authentic Is This Hadith?"; a separate video on the same question by Shaykh Dr. Abdullah as-Salmi; and two videos/shorts by Shaykh Uthman al-Khamis, one of which is titled "The Correct Method of Amal (Practice) on This Hadith" — which indicates that he too presents the hadith not unconditionally, but with a conditional explanation.

It is important to state honestly here that not a single one of these videos was actually watched or transcribed in this research. Only the video titles could be confirmed; what is being said inside could not be verified. So these videos are noteworthy as evidence for the idea that "the Arabic-speaking world is aware of this difference of opinion", but it cannot be said with certainty whether what they say accurately reflects the position of the Lajnah Daimah or al-Albani.

On the other hand, no YouTube video on this specific subject (the authenticity of the hadith) in Urdu or in your own language could be found in this research. This is being identified as a genuine content gap — but it needs to be honestly mentioned that two possibilities may be equally true here. It may be that no such video has ever been made in your own language or in Urdu; but it may also be that a general web search failed to find these videos, because YouTube's own search system and general web search engines do not always give the same results. Which of the two possibilities is true cannot be stated with certainty through this research.

Conclusion: The Claim of a Language, Not the Claim of a Chain

A simple, valuable lesson can be drawn from this journey across languages: a religious claim that seems "universal" when first heard turns out, on closer look, to be more common within the limits of a particular language, a particular madhhab, or a particular tradition. In the case of this hadith, we saw that the Arabic world is itself divided; the Urdu world has carried out independent criticism of the chain on the same hadith; most of the material in the Persian world actually comes from a completely different hadith tradition (Shia), which is unacceptable as Sunni evidence; the world of your own language has until now been unaware of this difference of opinion; and the English world has independently confirmed the Arabic ruling. So the most important question for a careful reader is this: after hearing a claim, one should ask, "Which tradition is this coming from, and how well established is it within that very tradition?" — because the reliability of a claim does not change when the language changes, but knowing from which language or tradition the claim is coming makes it much easier to assess it properly.

References

Arabic

• Sahih al-Jami' (al-Albani), hadith no. 3358 — the original hadith through Abu Umamah al-Bahili
• Permanent Committee for Fatwas (Lajnah Daimah), fatwa no. 18369 — "الحديث المذكور غير صحيح" (the mentioned hadith is not sahih)
• islamweb.net, fatwa no. 95127 — "أقوال العلماء في حديث داووا مرضاكم بالصدقة" (scholars' opinions on the hadith)
• dorar.net (Mawsu'ah Hadithiyyah) — al-Albani's separate gradings (the short phrase hasan li-ghayrihi; the full compiled form weak/very weak)

Urdu

• Mohaddis Forum — "صدقہ سے علاج کرو، کیا یہ حدیث صحیح ہے؟" (forum.mohaddis.com) — criticism of the chain, describing the narrator "Musa ibn Umayr" as "dhahib al-hadith, kadhdhab"
• Mohaddis Forum — "صدقہ سے علاج۔ ۔ ایک سچا واقعہ" — the story of "Dr. Isa Marzuqi" (source unverified)
• alulama.org — "مریض کا صدقے کے ذریعے علاج کرنا" (written by Bilal Karamat)
• Jamia Uloom-e-Islamia Banuri Town (banuri.edu.pk) — Deobandi fatwa, 29 December 2022, practical guidance without discussion of the hadith's chain
• ur.wikishia.net — Urdu WikiShia, the "بیماروں کی شفا" section (Shia source, mentioned for comparison, not as evidence)

Persian

• hadithlib.com — "درمان بيماران با صدقه" (through Imam Musa al-Kadhim, Shia)
• hawzah.net — "درمان مشکلات و بیماری‌ها با صدقه!" (Imam Ali, Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq; through al-Kafi, Bihar al-Anwar, Shia)
• qom.shafaqna.com/FA/205679 — interview with Majid Rezaei (15 October 2020, Shafaqna, a Shia-affiliated news outlet) — caution against mechanical claims
• sunnatonline.org — "تاثیر صدقه در دفع بلاها و مصیبت‌ها" (Persian Sunni source, quoting the same Sahih al-Jami' 3358)

Your own language

• myjaalhaq.blogspot.com — "9 Amazing Incidents of Zakat and Sadaqah" (2018), indiscriminate quotation through Hasan al-Basri
• sistersforuminislam.com — "Disease and the Patient – What Does Islam Say! – 16 Sadaqah" — quotes Sahih at-Targhib 744, without discussion of authenticity
• muslimbangla.com, fatwa no. 131773 — a relevant fatwa on the ruling on seeking treatment, but it does not discuss this particular hadith

English

• IslamQA English — "Do Muslims Have to Seek Medical Treatment?" — independently quotes the Lajnah Daimah's ruling
• Masjid DarusSalam — "Commentary and Reflections on Hadith #5669 from al-Jami' al-Saghir: Treat Your Sick with Charity" — statement of Imam al-Halimi
• HadithAnswers.com — "Cure Sickness by Giving Sadaqah" — a third (moderate) position

YouTube (title confirmed, content unverified)

• Shaykh Mustafa al-Adawi — "ما صحة حديث داووا مرضاكم بالصدقة؟"
• Shaykh Dr. Abdullah as-Salmi — a separate video on the same question
• Shaykh Uthman al-Khamis — "الطريقة الصحيحة للعمل بحديث داووا مرضاكم بالصدقة" (two videos/shorts)

Please note: Only the titles of all these YouTube videos could be confirmed; none of them was verified by watching or transcribing it. No video on this specific topic in Urdu or in your own language was found in this research. This may be a real gap, or it may be a limitation of the search method; it could not be said with certainty which of the two is true.

This article is based on independently conducted comparative research in Arabic, Urdu, Persian, English and your own language.