. الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه وسلم تسليماً كثيراً. الحمد الله السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Opening Remarks: The Vision of Muslim Healthcare

First of all, I really am honored to be here. The Reviving the Islamic Spirit is something that I've been coming to now for over a decade. And I really have always, every time I come to Canada, I wonder why I'm living in the United States, but that's another matter.

I mean, you have Trudeau, we have Trump, you have maple syrup, we have that phony corn syrup that they call maple syrup. But I was very heartened by what I saw here, because I've actually been for a very long time asking Muslim physicians in the United States, why don't we have a teaching hospital? And it's actually really bothered me that we have so many physicians in the United States. In fact, we have the number of physicians in the United States is such that if they all left to join ISIS, we would have a major crisis in our healthcare system in the United States.

And that's simply a fact. When David Letterman can say on national television, I went to my physician and he said face Mecca and cough, and everybody in the audience laughed, you know that people are experiencing Muslims as the primary healthcare physicians. It's amazing that they can be frightened of Muslims and think that they're out to get them, and then their surgeon is a Muslim who's actually cutting them open with a knife, and their anesthesiologist is a Muslim saying—I always say, don't tell them to count to 10 backward, but rather say, repeat after me, because it might be the last thing they say. Hopefully it won't be.

You know, I was looking at the—he said, we make an easy transition from the hospital to the cemetery. I hope you don't promote that when you open up your hospital. I think that'll scare people. Hopefully it's an easy transition from the hospital back home, not to the cemetery by way of a janazah prayer at the masjid.

The Power of Dreams and Vision

But I really, it's really, I'm so happy to see Muslims actually envisioning this. Because we know that when we want to accomplish something in the world, the first thing we do is imagine it. One of my favorite hadiths of the Prophet is: (كان رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم أحلى الناس - Kāna Rasulu Allāhi ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam ahlā an-nās) - "The Messenger of Allah was the most forbearing of people."

But some of our tradition, they take what are called isharat—meanings that aren't really intended by the literal words, but that you can take from the words. And one of the meanings that I get from that is he was the greatest dreamer. That (أحلى الناس - ahla an-nās) can also mean the one who had the most dreams.

But our Prophet, he looked at the world, and he saw something different. When Khabab ibn al-Aratt complained about the persecution, he said, the time is coming when a woman will go from, in a riwayah, when a woman will go from Syria to Yemen and fear nothing but a lion or a wolf on the road. In other words, he imagined a world of security for women. This was something he envisioned in his mind, and something that he, through revelation, gave us the means to achieve that—to protect the weak, to protect the helpless. These are the dreams of our Prophet. He really did see a different world when he looked at the world.

He never looked at anybody as his enemy, but he always looked at people as their potential allies and friends. This is the way he looked at people. When he saw Abu Sufyan, he didn't see an eternal enemy. He saw a potential friend. And he fought him for 20 years, and in the end Abu Sufyan embraced his path. And this is our Prophet-he sat with Hind, who bit into the liver of his beloved uncle. He sat with her, as a sister in Islam, because he didn't hold rancor in his heart. This is who our Prophet was.

Turning Dreams into Reality

And so, the first thing is to envision something, and then to share that vision. Because when we begin to share a dream, it becomes a reality. And the most dangerous of people if somebody sleeps at night and has dreams, you just call him a sleeper. But when people have dreams when they're wide awake, those are dangerous people. Because those are the people that transform this world. And that is what you're envisioning here.

You're envisioning a dream of something that should not be one or two or three. There should be a Muslim teaching hospital in every city in Canada, every major city. We should have a Muslim teaching hospital in every major city in the United States. And we should treat the poor, and we should treat the needy.

One of the most important institutions in the United States is the Mayo Clinic. And Bill and Charlie, who were the founders of this clinic, 30% of all their patients were given their bill with paid in full. Because they actually donated. 30% of all of their medical practice was volunteer. Because they believed that a physician was first and foremost a servant of the people, and not somebody who gets rich off the calamities and trials and tribulations of people.

Medicine as a Sacred Calling

Everybody needs to make a living. And there's no reason why you shouldn't make good livings as physicians. But medicine is a vocation from the Latin vocare, a calling. And if it's not something deep in your heart, you really shouldn't be a physician. Because physicians are meant to be healers.

Our Prophet once fell off a horse and he hurt his back. And a man came to see him and he said, who are you? He said, I'm a physician. He said, you're not a physician, you're a compassionate person. God is the physician. It's such a beautiful statement of how he looked at the world.

The Prophet one of the intriguing things, Ibn Khaldun said that the Prophet did not come to bring us medicine. He came to bring us a revelation to draw us near to our Lord, and to be able to be in the world with

intelligence. But he said, but he brought the principles of medicine.

The Quranic Foundation of Health

In fact, in the verse in the Quran : (وَكُلُوا وَاشْرَبُوا وَلَا تُسْرِفُوا إِنَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ الْمُسْرِفِينَ - Wakulū wa ishrabū wa lā tusrifū innahu lā yuhibbu al-musrifīn) - "Eat and drink but do not be excessive. Indeed, He does not love those who are excessive." (Quran 7:31)

When one of the Greek physicians heard this verse, which says, eat and drink but excess—for surely God loves not those who do things to excess he said, your Prophet didn't leave anything for Galen: لم يترك نبيك لجالينوس شيئاً - Lam yatruk nabiyyuka li-Jālīnūs shay'an.

We know now that 80%, this is according to the National Institutes of Health, that 80% of illnesses are directly related to what people eat, what they imbibe, when they smoke, when they drink, when they overeat, when they eat foods that are bad for them. And yet so little of our medical education is directed towards dietary guidelines. Very few physicians have more than three units in nutrition.

The Prophet's Approach to Diet and Nutrition

And yet nutrition is so important to the health of a human being. Why have we neglected that aspect? One of the quickest ways to reverse cardiac disease is to go on a radical diet for a period of time, which is largely a plant-based diet. And this has been proven at the finest institutions, medical institutions in America.

So, why isn't this being prescribed? Why do we do? They say, oh, that's too radical. And yet, sawing a person's sternum open taking a vein from their leg and sewing it onto their heart is not radical. The idea that people are helpless and they can't comply, non-compliance. You have to teach people. Teach people how to eat. Teach people how to live.

Our Prophet, once a man came to him and he said: (يا رسول الله اشتكى صدري - Ya Rasūla Allāh ashtakī ṣadrī) - "O Messenger of Allah, I complain of my chest." He put his hand on his chest and he said: (إنك مفؤود - Innaka mafūd) - "You have a heart problem." It's amazing, it's like he scanned his chest. And he said, you have a heart problem.

He said: (اذهب إلى الحارث بن كلدة فإنه يتطبب - Idhabila al-Hārith ibn Kaladah fa-innahu yatatabbab) - "Go to al-Harith ibn Kaladah because he knows how to treat these things." So, he referred him to a cardiologist, and because the Prophet said this, it's as if it's a hadith and it's recorded in our tradition as a hadith.

Prophetic Wisdom on Diet and Disease

The Prophet was reported to have said: (المعدة بيت الداء والحمية رأس الدواء - Al-mi'datu baytu ad-dā'i wa al-himyatu ra'su ad-dawā') - "The stomach is the source of illness, and diet is the basis of the cure." This is in our tradition.

The Prophet ate very little. He was not somebody who ate a lot. He actually had a semi-vegetarian diet. Months would go by and they saw no cooked food in his house. This is well known in the Sira. Sayyidina Umar during

Traditional Wisdom and Modern Application

The ancient people knew, I'll give you another example. There's something in Saudi Arabia, like I discovered this, they call it the Ilk. It's a gum that they chew. And I have a friend, he's an MD from Harvard. The best in the West, no offense to any of your medical schools. But it's probably Johns Hopkins, but Harvard is up there. Graduate of Harvard in cardiology.

And I discovered this thing they sell, because I went to this shop of herbs in Medina, and he was explaining all the medicinal properties. I said, what's that one good for? He said, that's good for acid. Like if you have acid, you just chew that and it'll go away. And so I bought some. It was amazing.

And so I asked my friend, Dr. Mehdi, do you know about that? He said, about what? The Ilk? He said, everybody uses that. I said, for what? Is it antacid? I said, that's one of the billion dollar industry in the West. Why don't you package this? It's just such a simple thing. You chew this thing and swallow the juice, and it alkalizes the stomach, and people feel better.

So there are many things in our tradition. We had a great tradition of medicine. And obviously, there's a lot of the past that was the limitations of their time and place. But there are many, many things that are based on wisdom and intelligence. Your grandmothers had cures and remedies for things that really do work, or they wouldn't have lasted for centuries.

The Balance Between Old and New

But we should always be open to these things. Allopathy is a great gift. Antibiotics is one of the greatest gifts that's ever been given to civilization. It's saved so many people, and yet it's so grossly abused. It's given for ear infections that are viral. It's just so grossly abused, and now we're getting all of these horrible drugs.

I wrote a paper 25 years ago called, When Antibiotics Fail, because I'd read a book by a researcher from Marc Lappé. He's a biologist from Berkeley. And he wrote a book in the 1970s called, When Antibiotics Fail, warning about the overuse of antibiotics and the great crises it would eventually cause.

So we have these people that know these things, and yet we ignore these things. And this is the stupidity of our race, because we're so driven, our species, because we're so driven by greed. And our religion is a religion that recognizes greed as a disease of the heart. That's what it is. Greed is a sickness in the heart. And we have to struggle against these things in ourselves.

The Prophet's Physical Activity and Health

So our Prophet ﷺ, the care that he took for his body, he walked every day. I was with a physician. I was with a

friend of mine from Saudi Arabia who supports diabetes research. Because in Saudi Arabia, one of the greatest epidemics that they have is type 2 diabetes. Because people don't walk anymore, and they drink sugared tea all day. And so if you're over 40, invariably you will have diabetes in Saudi Arabia.

And increasingly young people getting it because of the obesity crises that we're seeing in the Gulf States. But we were with one of the leading centers for the study of diabetes, which is at the University of San Francisco.

And we met with the top researcher there. He's a Hindu-American physician. And this man asked him, what's the most cutting-edge thing in type 2 diabetes? He said, Hadid, if I tell you, you're just going to laugh. He said what? He said walking 10,000 steps every day.

He said that is the best thing that you can do for type 2 diabetes. Just go out and walk 10,000 steps. So just as an experiment, when I was in Mecca, I took a step counter. And I did Umrah. It was 10,000 steps. I'm not making this up. It just amazed me. It was 10,000 steps. And we know that the body is designed to walk 10,000 steps a day. That's a couple of hours. It's about an hour and a half of walking. And yet people don't walk.

Walking as Therapy

If you walk, walking is one of the best treatments for depression. Especially walking in natural environments. Like amongst trees, in mountains. Just walking. You will begin to feel better. Kierkegaard said, I never was depressed except that I took a walk. And by the end of a long walk, I felt so much better. These are the things that we know. This is called ambulatory therapy in some traditions of just walking.

"(Those who walk humbly on the earth.)"

This is how God described who? The servants of the merciful who walk on the earth humbly. The Arabs say: (المشي السريع دواء لا يخيب - Al-mashy as-sarī' dawā'un lā yukhayyib) - "Brisk walking is a treatment that will never fail."

I had one of my teachers in Mauritania was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. He took that proverb seriously. He started walking every day for a couple of hours. Because he didn't want to take the medication. And he was cured of his type 2 diabetes. These are realities that we need to educate people about. We need to do research on these things.

Muslim Contribution to Medical Research

So there are many many things that I feel like the Muslims should be at the cutting edge. We should have more things like there is an ophthalmologist here. We have something called Ahmed Shunt, which was discovered by a Muslim. We need more Muslims doing research, instead of just being physicians. Start doing double blind studies about things that you can see for yourself. There are a lot of things that you can do.

And we should be contributing. This is what the Muslims are. We are contributors to civilization. We took civilization for a long time. We were the heads of the caravan. Now others have taken it. And unfortunately they are driven largely by profit. We were driven largely by profits as well. But we spelled it P-R-O-P-H-E-T-S. They

spell it P-R-O-F-I-T-S. So you are either driven by profits or you are driven by profits. And you have to choose what is driving you.

And so it is really important for us as a community. So I really hope that you take this seriously. I would love to see the Canadian physicians do this.

Building Beautiful Islamic Hospitals

I would recommend a few things. One, that you look at what Walid Al-Fatehi did in Jeddah. He is an extraordinary man. He was a urologist I think from Boston. He studied at Boston University. He went back to Jeddah. And he built a beautiful Islamic hospital. Designed by Sami Angawi, the great Muslim architect from Mecca. In a traditional, it is one of the most stunning buildings you ever see. And he designed it based on Muslim principles. And it is really a beautiful building.

Our ancestors built the most beautiful buildings in human history. If you look whenever the Israelis want to highlight their tourism, what do they put? They don't put any synagogues. They put the Dome of the Rock. Israelis. They put a Muslim masjid as a symbol of beauty in their country.

When the Hindus want to highlight coming to India, to entice people to come visit India, what do they put? The Taj Mahal. A Muslim building. The Taj Mahal. When the Spanish want to highlight people coming to Spain to visit their buildings, what do they put? The Alhambra Palace.

The Beauty of Islamic Civilization

We, our civilization built the most beautiful buildings in human history. Imagine the people that built those buildings. Because it was the beauty that was inside them that brought it out of them. You can't build beautiful things if you're not beautiful people. And that's why so much in today's world is ugly.

When you look around. I look at those beautiful buildings downtown that the early Canadians built. And then next to them are these cancerous gross that are there. It's just amazing. So you look at that beautiful old city hall. And it's got some gothic elements. But it's actually got some Muslim elements too.

Those beautiful arches that have the light dark. That was based on the night and the day, right? That Allah created night and day for people that want to remember. That's why they put them in the masjids. To remind people that life is curvilinear. We begin young and we end up dying. But it's a transition of night and day. And so you see that in England and many of their buildings where they build these arches. They took those from the Muslims.

The plates that Muslims ate on are now museum pieces. Just ordinary Muslims eating. The clothes that they wore were always beautiful. They were embellished. Look at the Afghani. I'm talking about Afghani peasants who wore these beautiful embroidered clothes that were stitched by the women by hand. Why did they? They

weren't just functional. They saw clothes as not just being functional but as declaring something about human beings. That we're people of beauty. We love beauty.

Principles of Hospital Design

And that's why our hospitals should be beautiful. They shouldn't be Bauhausian functionally built architectural monstrosities that are so common in the modern world. They should be beautiful buildings. I read when I graduated from nursing. They gave me a book called Notes on Nursing by Florence Nightingale. And I read that book. And if you've never read it, it's really worth reading. She was so ahead of her time. One of the places where I think she was inspired was she worked in a Turkish hospital. And she was so struck by the beauty of Muslim civilization.

But she said hospitals should always have open air. Don't close the windows. They need fresh air. She said put flowers everyday in the rooms of the patients. Because this will brighten up their spirits. These are taken from Muslim tradition. When Abu Bakr Al-Razi wanted to build a hospital in Baghdad, do you know what he did? He took pieces of meat. And he put them in different parts of the city. And the place where they actually deteriorated slowest is where he built the hospital. Because he thought that the air would have been best in that place. I mean these people were just brilliant people. Truly brilliant people. But bright colors. Being cheerful.

The Importance of Bedside Manner

I'll give you an example. You know I had a physician. And he does cupping, which is used only in the Scandinavian countries for blood pressure. Again something our prophet taught. And something that has been totally neglected by the allopathic community. The benefits of cupping. But it's used in allopathic medicine in the Scandinavian countries to this day. And the Chinese still use it also in their hospitals.

But I went to this physician. He's a Turkish man. And when I went in, he took my pulse. And I was feeling so run down. Good pulse. Good pulse. Allahu Akbar. And then he like got his stethoscope out. He started. MashaAllah. MashaAllah. Allahu Akbar. MashaAllah. Good. Heart. Good. Heart. Good. Then he listened to my lungs. MashaAllah. Allahu Akbar. You know and by the end of it I was feeling so much better. I was just like. I was feeling so good. You know.

And now you go to a physician. They say, boy you're in bad shape. You know. By the end of it, you know, okay, just call the undertaker. You know. So, you know, just being positive with your patients. You know. Reminding them that things are working. You know. It's, you know, unfortunately we got a little problem here. But overall, your health is really good. Your lungs are working great. Kidneys are working great. Liver is great. Fantastic. You know. All you got, you know, a little bit of trouble here in your urinary tract. We can handle that. You know. Just, really, just the power of making people feel better. Right. This is the thing. Physicians. Just smiling. Coming in and smiling. You know.

The Physician's Humility and Approach

I remember once I had a cardiac patient. And I was telling him, look, the best thing you can do is, is, is, for now, is go, go on a diet. And I was giving these dietary guidelines. And when the physician came in, he said, he said, you know, the nurse was telling me that I should change my diet and eat more plant based and do that and that, that would help reverse this cardiac disease. And the guy just literally, he said, rubbish. He said, look, there's fats, lipids, and proteins. You know. That's, that's all there is. Whatever you eat, whatever combination, just, you know, have a balance between fats, lipids, and proteins, and you'll be fine.

And I said, you know, just really sad that this is the, this is the training that a lot of these people have. And the arrogance too is there. You know. It's, I mean, physicians need to be confident. You don't want to go in and have this guy kind of saying, I'm not really sure. You know. I'm just, yeah, I wish I knew. You know. You want that confidence. And, but you don't want cockiness. And you don't want that over confidence. You want confidence with a humility. You know.

The Power of Hope in Medicine

Never give a patient a prognosis of, you know, a death sentence. It's just, you know, it's just such a horrible thing that some physicians do. You know. They told my mother that if she don't get her breasts removed, that she would probably not be alive after a year. That was seven years ago. And she chose not to have her breasts removed. You know. And her oncologist said, you know, you're just like a walking miracle. That might be an anomaly. But it happens. And you can't judge for people. You can't. People have reversals.

That same doctor, Mehdi told me that he had a patient that he was brought in for the cardiac problem. And, but this patient had cancer of the throat. He couldn't swallow. And they wanted to put in a tube. And they really thought that he wouldn't live much longer. So they told him. And I heard this first hand from Dr. Mehdi. He's a brilliant physician. He was the king's physician, cardiologist in Jeddah. And he told me that they sent the man home thinking that he's going to die.

And usually in Saudi Arabia, physicians call the families and give taziyah and things. So he literally called this family to give taziyah, like condolences, about a couple months later. And they said, no, no, no, he's fine. He said, what are you talking about? He said, he's fine. You know. He's really well. He's eating. He said, I don't believe that. You know. He said, can I come visit? And he went. There was no, the cancer was gone. He could not believe it. And he asked him, what did he do? He said, well, you guys told him that he probably wouldn't live very long. So he wanted to go to Mecca. And so he went. And all he would do was he used to drink through a straw Zemzem. And every day it just started getting smaller.

Closing Remarks: A Call to Action

And so, it's good to see that. So it's a young organization. And I really hope you grow. And I would love to be a consultant on your project. And to see it come to fruition. And one day you will invite me for the opening. I would love to see it realized soon, inshallah.