التداوي
A general instruction to actively seek treatment for illness, framing every disease — old age excepted — as having a discoverable cure.
تَدَاوَوْا، فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَمْ يَضَعْ دَاءً إِلَّا وَضَعَ لَهُ شِفَاءً، غَيْرَ دَاءٍ وَاحِدٍ: الْهَرَمُ
“Seek treatment, for Allah has not created a disease without also creating a cure for it — except one: old age.” (meaning, not a literal translation)
This hadith is arguably the single most important framing statement for the entire genre this site indexes — it establishes disease as something to be actively investigated and treated, not passively accepted as unchangeable fate, which is the doctrinal foundation for everything else on this site.
Scholars including Ibn al-Qayyim cite this as the doctrinal basis for treating medicine and scientific inquiry into disease as religiously encouraged, not fatalistically avoided. He uses this hadith explicitly to argue against a passive, fatalistic response to illness, positioning active treatment-seeking as itself an act consistent with trust in Allah, not opposed to it.
This foundational framing — that illness has a discoverable, treatable cause rather than being an unchangeable fate — aligns with the basic premise underlying all of modern medical science, even though the two traditions developed through entirely separate historical paths.