Islam values health as a blessing, tells people to seek treatment, to eat in moderation, to keep clean and to avoid what harms the body. The Prophet ﷺ said, 'Your body has a right over you.'
The fuller answer
Cleanliness is part of faith: Muslims wash before each prayer, wash after the toilet with water and bathe on Fridays. The Prophet ﷺ taught not to fill the stomach more than a third with food, to brush the teeth with the siwak and to avoid entering or leaving a land with a plague, which is an early teaching on quarantine.
Muslims should seek medical care and see it as a means that God provides. Vaccination is accepted by the great majority of Muslim scholars, as it protects life, and the same applies to organ transplants in most scholarly rulings. Harmful things, such as smoking and drugs, are discouraged or forbidden by most scholars.
O you who have believed, when you rise to [perform] prayer, wash your faces and your forearms to the elbows and wipe over your heads and wash your feet to the ankles. And if you are in a state of janabah, then purify yourselves. But if you are ill or on a journey or one of you comes from the place of relieving himself or you have contacted women and do not find water, then seek clean earth and wipe over your faces and hands with it. Allah does not intend to make difficulty for you, but He intends to purify you and complete His favor upon you that you may be grateful.
This answer follows the mainstream Sunni understanding and is general learning, not a fatwa. Where Muslims differ, the answer says so. Have a question of your own? Write to us.
