The universe is subjugated to man in two ways:

 Dear honourable sisters and brother, -first of all I would like to say that there are fundamental facts in the religion that play a crucial role in directing the doctor when he chooses to take this sophisticated domain (medicine) as a career. First, you, as a human being, are the foremost creature in the Sight of Allah, Allah says:

﴾Truly, We did offer Al-Amanah (the trust or moral responsibility or honesty and all the duties which Allah has ordained) to the heavens and the earth, and the mountains, but they declined to bear it and were afraid of it (i.e. afraid of Allah's Torment). But man bore it.﴿

[Al-Ahzab, 72]

 You are the foremost creature since, as a human being, you bore the trust in Al-Azal (the pre-material) world:

﴾And has subjected to you all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth﴿

[Al-Jathiyah, 13]

 This subjection is in two ways: The first one is to honor you, which entails praising Allah, and the second is to get you acquainted with Allah, which entails believing in Him. When you believe in Allah and praise him, you fulfill the purpose of your existence. Allah says:

﴾Why should Allah punish you if you have thanked (Him) and have believed in Him.﴿

[An-Nisa', 147]

 What you are supposed to do in return for having the universe subjected you in order to get acquainted with Allah is to believe in Him, and what you are supposed to do for having the universe subjected to you in order to be honored is to be grateful to Him. When we believe in Allah and praise Him, we fulfill the purpose of our existence.

The basic needs which Allah has installed in mankind:

 Man has to make his living in life, according to the Divine profound wisdom, and his career will be his means to exalt in the Sight of Allah as long as it brings benefits to other people. I congratulate all doctors and all students who still study medicine for choosing medicine as their career, because this career is about giving. When the patient comes to you, doctor, worried about his health condition, and you treat and cure him depending on the medical knowledge you have, and Allah's Help, you will be doing him the greatest favor ever. Hence:

Both the doctor and the teacher
Will not offer advice if they are not dignified

 I was told in here, and actually I myself noticed that the doctor in this country and the other ones in the Middle East has a prominent position, which is a great grace. Allah has installed basic needs in mankind, the first of which is man's need to food and drink in order to stay alive, and the second need for the male and female is to get married in order to have children and save the human race. I invoke Allah to grant every single man and single woman a successful marriage. The third need, according to psychologists, is to have self-esteem. In my view, the third need is to have a good reputation that will make people remember you after death. After fulfilling your first and second needs, you yearn for being a distinguished person, to be superior and to have self-esteem. In fact this is the third need in mankind.

Medicine is an elegant career which offers help to people:

 The doctor will exalt in the Sight of Allah, because he has chosen this elegant career, through which he offers people help and takes part in curing them from their illnesses. Heroism lies in being satisfied with your own performance, in being praiseworthy in the Sight of Allah and in being appreciated by people. The devoted doctor surely will be satisfied with his own performance, but if- Allah forbid- a doctor is deviated from Allah's Path, and he uses medicine as a means of making a living only, he will be disgraced by his own self. Man would rather fall down from the sky and hit the ground having all his bones broken, than being disgraced by Allah or even by his own self.

 I believe that the doctor shouldn't be asked to look after a certain patient, but do you know why? That is because he knows Allah watches over him, and the patient he treats is Allah's servant, and thus he should serve him the best way he can in order to exalt in the Sight of Allah. I tell you one more time that you should praise Allah for giving you the opportunity to work in a domain through which you can serve human beings. Keep in mind that man is Allah's Structure, so whoever destructs him is cursed. Some careers are based on destructing this structure, whereas sh3er are based on building it.

Medicine and teaching are elegant careers which need self- surveillance:

  Dear brother, allow me to start with the well-known following Hadith:

((The deeds are considered by the intentions.))

[Al-Bukhari, by Umar]

 Accordingly, when you study medicine and excel in it aiming at having a huge income, a big house, a pretty woman, a luxurious car and the pleasures of life, you are giving cold shoulder to the humanistic side of this career, and you are overlooking its mission (which you are expected to accomplish) and forgetting that it is a very elegant service. On the other hand, when the doctor is acquainted with Allah, he will use his career as a means to draw closer to Allah and to serve His creations, given the one who serves Allah's creations is endeared by Al-Haqq (Allah):

((The creations are dependents of Allah, and the most beloved to Allah are those who benefit most His dependents.))

[Abu Ya'la and Al-Bazzar, by Anas Ibn Malik]

 As a believing man, I should believe that my career is an act of worship, but what kind of career are we talking about? It is the one that is legitimate in Islam, and medicine is the most elegant legitimate career, and so are engineering, pharmacy and teaching. Some careers are not only legitimate, but also dignified. When your career is lawful (such as medicine), and when you practise it without deceiving, blackmailing or overcharging your patients, you will sublime. A very respectful Syrian doctor said to me once, "By Allah, because of the trust patients in our country put in doctors, I am able to make my patient unknowingly sell his house (in order to pay me). The patient is submissive to his doctor, and he trusts his word." A doctor may ask his patient to do 12 tests while he needs only one. Another doctor may send his patient to a certain laboratory, so that both make money without the patient's knowledge.

 When one believes that he is under the Divine Supervision, he will exalt in the Sight of Allah. If a famous lawyer assures his client that he will win the case, while he prolongs it for ten years as he is pretty sure from the very beginning that he will lose, and he takes from his client hefty money, who knows that the lawyer is lying? Only Allah knows. Hence, elegant careers like medicine, law and teaching require self-supervision. Allow me to say that the doctor should believe that Allah watches him that the patient is one of Allah's servants and that he will be asked about him before Allah. Doctors should always remember that if they do not treat the patients (whom are Allah's servants) properly, they will receive Allah's Punishment.

 Once, I said to a person whose career permits him to bring grave harm to people, "Don't forget that these are Allah's servants, and Allah can afflict you with cancer, kidneys failure, cirrhosis and other intractable diseases that are bad enough to knock down a mountain, so beware, Allah is the Most Great." The more you know Allah, the more you fear Him:

((The head of all wisdom is to fear Allah))

 You should believe that Allah knows, and He will reckon and punish the wrongdoers. In Damascus I used to have regular sessions with doctors between 10-11:30 AM, and each session was attended by 300 of the most prominent doctors in Syria. One of them told me that a man from the coastal region in Syria came to him with his wife, and after examining the wife, the doctor took her husband to another room and said to him, "Your wife has cancer". The husband was shocked, and he said, "The so and so doctor treated her for two years, and he had never told us that it is cancer". Of course this doctor got the drill, for the doctor who treated her was blackmailing the couple for two years. The husband felt on his knees saying in despair, "O Lord, if You really exist, please take revenge for me on that doctor" The wife had skin cancer that could be treated in its early stages, but that doctor said it was skin infections and treated it accordingly for two years in order to blackmail the couple. The doctor who told me the story is still alive and he is one of the excellent doctors in Syria, and he sworn by Allah that a year later, the same doctor (who treated that patient) came to him having the same disease. Allah is the Most Great.

Medicine and education are the closest careers to the Hereafter's deeds:

 Believing that this patient is the servant of Allah should make you treat him sincerely and skillfully. A touching story happened once in Egypt, and it is about a doctor who examined a child and mistakenly prescribed the medication for an adult, which would have killed the child if he had taken it. That doctor went to the official television and announced his name and told his story saying, "An hour ago I gave a prescription of a high dose to a child and it might kill him". Fortunately, the father knew about it before giving the medication to his son. Apparently, this doctor put his reputation at risk in order to save this child, but consequently he was admired by all Egyptians and became doctor number one in Egypt. Medicine and teaching, dear brother, are the two careers which are considered the closet to the deeds of the Hereafter:

Both the doctor and the teacher
Will not offer advice if they are not dignified

 Dear brother, what is the meaning of "so He has made their deeds fruitless"? It means whatever the doctor, who studied medicine just for money, does will become fruitless. Also, it means whoever does not make use of the knowledge he has according to the Islamic teachings, and instead he just aims at collecting wealth (from his patients) while mistakenly treat his patient, his deeds will be fruitless. I congratulate the male and female students who study medicine and the skillful doctors for choosing this elegant domain a career to make his living from, but you should know that this career has a mission that is supposed to be fulfilled.

Whoever believes that Allah knows, reckons and punishes act upon His Method:

 In fact, the following Ayah is all-inclusive and sufficient:

﴾ Verily! Allah commands that you should render back the trusts to those, to whom they are due; a﴿

[An-Nisa', 58]

 I keep saying that the patient is the doctor's trust, so have you, as a doctor, offered him the best advice? Have you taken good care of him? Have you asked him to do the test which would enable you know his illness and treat him properly? Allah the Almighty is the Most Great and the All-Knowing and in His Hand is life and death, health and illness, richness and povertyand the life of all people who are around you, the ones who are superior to you and the ones who are inferior to you.  The Ayah is very precise:

﴾ So plot against me, all of you,﴿

[Hud, 55]

 This is a challenge:

﴾And give me no respite* "I put my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord! There is not a moving (living) creature but He has grasp of its forelock. Verily, my Lord is on the Straight Path (the truth).﴿

[Hud, 55-56]

  Hence:

﴾Verily! Allah commands that you should render back the trusts to those, to whom they are due﴿

[An-Nisa', 58]

 It is a trust, so the patient is the doctor's trust, the student is the teacher's trust and the client is the attorney's trust. The concept of trust is very wide; every person is assigned, by Allah, to a certain trust, so the children, for example, are the father and mother's trust. When you comprehend the very wide meaning of trust, you surely will believe that Allah watches you, and that He will hold you responsible for your trust, and thus He will reward you or punish you accordingly. Personally, I believe that the most idiot person is the one who thinks he can do whatever he likes and say whatever he wishes through his power, knowledge, social position and trustfulness, forgetting about being called to account and Allah's Punishment. When you believe that Allah knows, reckons and punishes, you become well-mannered.

Perfecting the job is part of the religion:

 You should know that perfecting your job is part of your religion:

((Verily, Allah loves that when anyone of you does a job he should perfect it.))

[Al-Jame' AsSagheer, by Aishah]

 Perfecting your job is part of Islam. Therefore, the medical information of the doctor should be updated from time to time. If he forgets something he studied about a disease, and so he is not sure about diagnosing it, he should say to the patient, "Come tomorrow". He must read medical books and references (in order to refresh his memory and update his information). Being updated, and catching up with the most recent information, are essential for every doctor. As far as I know, some universities in Europe never certify a doctor unless he attends two medical conferences every year in order to update his information. I know some doctors who graduated from the Faculty of Medicine since 1958, and had never opened a medical book ever since, whereas in the Western countries, the doctor should attend two seminars or conferences about his specialty every year.

 Dear brother, if we read the following Ayah in the Quran attentively, we will be perfectly upright:

﴾Surely, Allah is Ever an All-Watcher over you.﴿

[An-Nisa', 1]

 Everything is in Allah's Hand, your health, your knowledge, your children, your social position and your reputation. I have to mention examples, one of which is about a surgeon in Syria. This doctor used to operate on his patients whether they needed it or not, even if it was harmful to them. His income used to be millions on weekly basis, but his wrongdoing was disclosed. Allah exists, but He gives free rein to the wrongdoers, so if you mistreat people, but you are not punished yet, don't underestimate Allah's Greatness, for He just defers you until another time. Allah says:

﴾certainly My Plan is strong.﴿

[Al-A'raf, 183]

 In physics we say "strong" to the metal which resists tensile strength and we say "hard" to the metal which resists the compressive strength. Diamond is the hardest metal on earth (tooth enamel comes next), whereas steel is the strongest metal on earth, especially the braided steel from which the cables of elevators and telefreak are made of:

﴾certainly My Plan is strong.﴿

[Al-A'raf, 183]

  Why does Allah choose the word "strong" to describe His plan? To give the image that you are connected to Allah with a rope and you can't get rid of Allah's Grip. Accordingly, if you fear Allah, you should consider the patient a servant of Allah, given Allah is the All-Watcher over you. Some doctors do not ask the patient some questions related to his condition, like making sure that he is not allergic to a particular substance. Ignoring this information can cause big problems to the patients.

 Once in Damascus, a patient got checked out of a hospital, but his chart was left on his bed. Another patient was admitted and was put in that bed, and he needed blood, so the doctor checked the chart (thinking it belonged to the patient), and he asked the nurses to give him blood of the type he found in the chart. As a result, the patient died out of hemolytic transfusion reaction. These are grave mistakes, and according to my humble belief, the one who commits such mistakes, must be called to account:

﴾Verily, We give life to the dead, and We record that which they send before (them), and their traces [their footsteps and walking on the earth with their legs to the mosques for the five compulsory congregational prayers, Jihad (holy fighting in Allah's Cause) and all other good and evil they did, and that which they leave behind]﴿

[Ya-Sin, 12]

 Negligence causes the death of a patient. Unfortunately, people usually say, "he died because his hour has come", but the Almighty Allah knows that his death was the result of someone's negligence:

((Whoever practices medical treatment without knowledge will be held answerable.))

 Once I went to a doctor's clinic in America, and I was surprised by the huge number of files in it, so I asked, "What are all these files?" He answered, "These are the files of my patients who died", but again I asked, "Why do you keep them?" He explained, "There is a law in America according to which the son of each patient has the right to file a lawsuit against me in the court after 4.5 years of his father's death, so I have to tell the court how I treated him?" The law used to give 3 years to the patient's relatives and now it is 5 years, which means that the son of the patient can file this lawsuit against the doctor on the last day of these five years. In our countries we have faith tinged with naivety, and we ascribe the death of any patient to the Divine Decree saying that his hour has come, and so the case is closed:

((Whoever practices medical treatment without knowledge will be held answerable.))

Medical career entails good conducts:

 Dear brother, when we say, "the traits of the Muslim doctor", we mean that this doctor has good conducts. I know an orthopedic surgeon who uses a large sheet with a hole in it. If his patient is a woman, he asks, "Where does it hurt you?", so if she says that it is the knee, for instance, he covers her with the sheet and leaves the opening on the knee only. How lovely to be that chaste. I was told by American doctors that the woman is stripped naked in the hospital, and six or seven men stand around her bed (doctors, nurses and lab men). Islam is great, and this Muslim doctor, who uses this sheet with a hole, is a true believer. A doctor in Detroit also said to me once, "By Allah, when the doctors treat a woman, they talk about her body and beauty very rudely". The doctor who said what doctors usually say about the female patients is an Arab doctor who happened to attend an operation as an auxiliary doctor.

 Dear brother, practicing medicine entails exalted manners. I would like to advise the patients to stop telling their doctors about their personal problems, because it is unacceptable to do that. As for doctor, it is really noble of him to refrain from telling other people about his patient's weaknesses or disease (which might prevent him from getting married). It is preferable to keep these personal things secrets.. I am not exaggerating when I say that 50% of the doctor's knowledge is good conducts, because he has the access to his patient's detailed life, and he knows all about his shortcomings and privileges.

It is essential for the doctor to be humble:

 Dear brother, humbleness should be one of the good manners of the doctor, and it doesn't mean inferiority. The doctor's position is very prominent, but he should be so close to his patient. Sometimes doctors write unreadable prescription, and when the patient asks him to explain something to him, all he says is, "Just take the medication". I know a doctor who explains everything to the patient about his illness, he comforts him and he gives him information about every medicine he prescribes. Another doctor uses to write on the back of his prescription the benefits of every medicine, so that the patient is convinced of the importance of it. Thus, the more you take care of your patient, as a doctor, the more Allah loves you.

 When you take care of someone's son, your care means that you respect the father. Let me elaborate on this point, if you meet your friend while you are walking down the street with your son, and he gives your son a candy, this candy is given because you are endeared by him. Similarly, treating the patient properly, because you believe that he is Allah's servant actually represents your love to Allah. By Allah, a dentist once told me that a teacher, whose teeth had been severely displaced, asked him to treat them as her smile used to embarrass her before her students. Putting a braces for her teeth would cost lots of money (about 60.000 liras as I remember), and as a teacher her salary was barely 3000 a month, so when the dentist told her how much it cost her, she thanked him and was about to leave. Immediately, he stopped her and asked her to get back, and he treated her for free. He wept and swore by Allah twice or thrice that the sessions he spent in treating her teeth were his happiest moments in life, because his work was for Allah's Sake only. You should bear in mind that money is not everything in man's life; there are good deeds that are beyond description.

 I think that it is a good idea to tell you the following story although it is irrelevant to our topic. In Damascus, there is a district called "Sooq Saroojah" where a very famous Masjid called "Al-Ward" is located. The Khateeb of this Masjid, who was the former Mufti, dreamed of the Prophet, peace be upon him, telling him, "Say to your neighbor that he is my companion in Paradise." The neighbor whom he saw in the dream was an illiterate grocer, whereas this Khateeb got PHD in Shari'ah Studies, and he was a well known Khateeb, who was famous for his eloquence and good knowledge of Quran and Sunnah. However, the glad tidings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, (in the Khateeb's dream) was for his neighbor, which made the Khateeb a bit jealous. He headed to his neighbor and said to him, "I have glad tidings for you from the Prophet, peace be upon him, but I won't let you know what it is, unless you tell me what you have done to deserve it." The grocer tried not to tell the Khateeb, but when the latter insisted, the grocer said, "I got married to a woman, but after five months of our marriage, she was in her ninth month of pregnancy (obviously from another man prior her marriage). I had the choice of divorcing her, which is fair enough, also I had the choice of scandalizing her and it was fair as well, and by explaining the reason, no one will go against me, not even her family. Yet, I wanted to give her a chance to repent, so I brought a midwife to deliver her baby. After that, I took the baby under my garment, I stood in front of Masjid Al-Ward, I waited till the Imam started praying, and I put the baby by the door and went in to pray with the rest. Upon finishing Salah, the baby cried, so all the people gathered around him, and at that moment, I joined the crowd wondering about the matter. They said, "Come and see for yourself; it is an abandoned baby". I said, "Give him to me I will sponsor him and raise him as my own", so I took him, witnessed by all the people in the neighborhood, and I gave him back to his mother. He was an abandoned baby in the eyes of the neighbors. The glad tiding for this man from the Prophet, peace be upon him, is that he will be his companion in Paradise.

 This real story taught me that Allah enjoins Al-Adl (i.e. justice and worshipping none but Allah Alone - Islamic Monotheism) and Al-Ihsan (i.e. to be patient in performing your duties to Allah, totally for Allah's sake and in accordance with the Sunnah (legal ways) of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in a perfect manner). Sometimes Al-Ihsan precedes Al-Adl, as it is the case of the grocer; he could have disclosed her bad deed, and she might have been divorced, but Al-Ihsan saved her from humiliation, and she turned out to be a good person.

 Let's get back to our topic. Whose career is related to the domain of medicine, part of his job is manifested in his good manners. Once I called a doctor and asked him to come to my house at 2 AM to examine my mother. After he examined her, he said to me, "You insulted me when called me at 2 AM to come to your house for such a slight ache. Do you think this needs a doctor?" He was pretending by saying so just to put her at ease, and indeed her health condition improved 90 % because of what he said. He made her feel better thinking that nothing was wrong with her. Obsession causes the death of the patient in some cases. A doctor said to his patient, "You will die after 4 months so be careful", but this patient died the very next day, because he couldn't take the pressure. Our Prophet, peace be upon him, taught us:

((When you enter upon one who is sick, cheer him up and give him hope of a long life, for that does not change anything (of the Divine Decree), but it will cheer the heart of the one who is sick.))

Thus, say to the patient, "There is great hope in recovering from your illness."

Self-healing has nothing to do with medicine:

 Cases of self-healing have nothing to do with medicine, yet they exist, and I have lots of stories to prove that it. A close brother of mine is a teacher of biology in high schools in Damascus, and once he was diagnosed of lung cancer. The doctor who diagnosed him is one of the excellent doctors and a brother of mine as well. A biopsy of the tumor was taken to Britain for analysis, and the results said that it was a lung cancer of the fifth stage. I was moved and wept in his house, for he had a little child, and the operation would cost him his house. Let alone, the possibility of its success was 30 %. This incident took place 22 years ago, and now he is still alive. There are a lot of stories about self-healing, but medical research do not admit them, as they are considered a sort of hocus pocus, while they are real:

﴾"And when I am ill, it is He who cures me;﴿

[Ash-Shu'ara', 80]

 These stories are 100 % real. A doctor, who was the head of a huge medical section in Egypt, said his fellow doctor, "That female patient is dying, so prepared her death certificate", and he said to the nurse, "Make me a cup of coffee" to which the nurse answered, "I am not your maid, I am just a nurse in here". Then, the doctor said, "Do this test to the patient" as retaliation for what she said. That nurse died while she was preparing the death certificate of the female patient, whereas the patient lived for 12 years.

 There is another story which proves my point concerning the importance of avoiding jumping to conclusions. The aunt of one of my closest friends, whom I highly respect, used to live in Damascus and she got sick. The doctor said to them, "Start writing her death announcement", but she lived 45 years after they wrote her death announcement. Hence, we should take things easy and deeply believe that recovery is from the Almighty Allah.

 Let me tell one more story which is about a patient who was admitted to the military hospital in Damascus. He had a tumor in his intestine and it spread in the rest of his body, but this patient used to say to every visitor, "Be my witness that I am satisfied with Allah's Decree. O Lord, praise be to you". The entire staff in the hospital was attracted to this patient feeling the light and the happiness which were hovering over his room. Not to mention that all the physicians paid him daily visits, and he kept saying, "Be my witness that I am satisfied with Allah's Decree. O Lord, praise be to you". This patient died, and by chance another patient of the same disease was put in that room. Unlike, the last patient, this one used to swear and badmouth every Prophet, so the entire staff of the hospital could see the difference between the believing patient and the disbelieving one.

The believing doctor helps sh3er to recover:

 There are gates to the pain. For example, the pain might pass from the skin to the brain, so if we close these gates, we will reduce the pain to the half or even to the one tenth, but if they are kept open, the pain will increase ten times. What catches the attention is that the one who wrote this book (about pain and recovery), is not a religious person, but the last word he said in his book is, "These pain gates are controlled by the psychological state of the patient." Therefore, the believing patient and the believing doctor help in the healing and recovery.

 The intention of the believing doctor while he is treating his patient should be seeking Allah's Reward, because his career is his act of worship. As you know your career is trust, and perfecting it is part of the religion. Also, I said earlier that the believing doctor should update his medical information, and he should be humble, honest, merciful, just and cooperative with other doctors, which is very important. What is so called "career enmity" shouldn't exist between doctors, should it? Why should you be jealous if your fellow doctor examined so and so patient? Some doctors dispraise their fellow doctor after he finished examining a patient by saying, "He knows nothing". This attitude is not acceptable.

 I invoke Allah to protect your faith, your families, your children, your health and the stability of your country.