Introduction: God has sent the Holy Qur'an as a guidance book to humankind by the Prophet Mohammad. From Islam’s point of view, the health plays an essential role in human growth and maturity. Regarding the importance of the health issue and the emphasis on the divine verses, the present study fully reviewed all 114 Surahs (chapters) to find the verses specifically referring to the physical, mental and social dimensions of health.
Methods: This review-thematic study was performed via direct investigating of Surahs and each verse of the Qur'an, downloaded as PDF file from Google. Its interpretations, reliable religious sources, Islamic articles and software were collected to find the issues related to three major dimensions of health (physical, mental and social).
Findings: The results of the study showed that in 67 (58.77%) Surahs, the Qur'anic verses specifically refer to one, two or all three major dimensions of health (physical, mental, and social). The main Qur'anic verses of the Holy Qur'an generally cite the physical, mental and social dimensions of health, but the total number of verses particularly focused on three main dimensions of health are 264 of which 101 (38.26%), 94 (35.61%) and 69 (26.13%) are related to social, mental and physical health, respectively. In general, it was found that there are many important health topics: a) on the physical aspect such as eating lawful foods (halal) (including livestock' meat, grapes, pomegranates, olives, dates), avoiding consuming wine, carrion, blood and pork, as well as regarding the sexual hygiene in the form of legal marriage, b) on the mental dimension such as patience and affection, trust in God, heart calm and assurance, avoidance of sadness, having faith that after every difficulty, there will be comfort, and ultimately c) on the social dimension such as giving obligatory alms (Zakat), alms and charity (Infaq), affection to orphans, avoidance of gamble and extravagance, regarding justice as well as avoidance of ridiculing others for all people to act them.
Conclusion: It was concluded that many verses of the Holy Qur'an paid special attention to the three main dimensions of physical, mental and social health. Therefore, it seems necessary to develop further, deeper and more detailed exploitation of Qur'anic verses in the field of maintaining and promoting health by medical and health professionals, health system planners, and the religious and Qur'anic scholars in collaboration with each other. |
