By Haruna Razaq

Praise be to Allah, the Creator and Controller of the worlds. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon the prophet (SAW), his household, his companions and all believers of pre-destination. Among the duties of a Muslim is to act as protector of aqeedah (creed, faith, believe) and to purify it from wrong believe and practice because, faith is the foundation of Islam.

This duty (of protecting the faith) is one of the inspiration for this piece. Having observed that one of the major act that calls for quick correction among the present day Muslim in Nigeria in the area of aqeedah is method of problem solving adopted by many of them (Muslim).

Today, a lot of Muslims solve problems, and have continued to solve their problems using in the un-Islamic approaches. The major cause of this is that majority of Muslim is not aware of the correct Islamic method of solving problems and in the case of those who are aware, they did not put it into practice despite the effort of various Ahlu Sunnah scholars. Again, most Muslims in Nigeria regard shirk as an act of worshiping idols only, which they consider as harram, but unknown to them, shirk includes solving problems through un-Islamic way.

Therefore, Al-Ghazali has submitted that the very objective of the Shariah is to promote the welfare of the people, which lies in safeguarding their faith, their lives, their intellects, property and posterity.  When the definition of health as a state of complete physical, mental, spiritual, and social well-being is juxtaposed with the above submission of al-Ghazali, the conclusion can be safely drawn that promotion of people’s health, preventing them from health harzards and curing them of their ailments in case of illness are part of the objectives of Islam.

Just as Islam lays emphasis on preservation of health and preventive health care, it makes adequate provisions for curative health care as well. We hereby present below brief guide on manners of solving general problem through Islamic way along relevant topics.

Causes of problem
The Muslim’s creed concerning problems must be in line with the statement of Allah in the Qur’an that read thus: “Say; nothing will happen to us except what Allah has decreed for us. He is our protector; and on Allah let the believers put their trusts” (Q9:51).

But, Scholars of Islam has explained that problem comes to man as a result of (i) signs of divine wrath due to sins. For example, Almighty Allah states in the Qur’an: “Corruption doth appear on land and sea because of (the evil) which men’s hands have done, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, in order that they may return.” (30:41). (ii) Trials and tribulations to test true Muslim.

For example, Allah says: “And certainly, We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits, but give glad tidings to the patient. Who, when afflicted with calamity, say: Truly! To Allah we belong, and truly, to Him we shall return”(2:155-156).