Homeopathic medicine has alcohol??

salaam

I've been prescribed liquid homeopathic medicine, to be taken as 15 drops in half a glass of water, twice a day. I was reading the ingredients and discovered it says alcohol content: 90%.

What to do? Can I continue taking this medicine? I tried normal allopathic medicine for this same problem, but started having serious side effects so had to stop and looked for an alternative in homeopathy, but that has alcohol.

I asked around and everyone here is saying that its okay and that all syrup medicines, cough syrups etc have alcohol in them anyway, that its for your health purpose, and therefore a special circumstance.

Help!

Well, not being a Muslim, alcohol is not forbidden to me. However, it seems to me that this is a case where one must ask WHY alcohol is forbidden, and not other drinks, such as water, or milk, or orange juice. The unique quality alcohol has, is that it causes one to get drunk. It is probably the drunkeness that is actually forbidden, not alcohol. I do not think that taking only 15 drops of alcohol will cause one to get drunk at all.

But I don't know, the other Muslims here may have a different answer, so you should ask them. The alcohol in this medicine is used as a solvent, to dissolve things that are in the medicine. If it is not allowed for you, the only thing I can suggest is to try to find somebody who makes homeopathic medicines, and uses something else, such as water or oil as a solvent.

Also, alcohol evaporates faster than water, so another possibility could be that if you mix the medicine with the water, then let it evaporate for a day or so, most of the alcohol may evaporate, and you will not be drinking it. But I'm not sure, you should probably ask a chemist or something. It might also not be good for the medicine to let it evaporate.

hmm.. thanks. Anyone else please?

Have you guys ever had homeopathy remedies before? Or do you tend to stay away from them?

assalaamu alaykkum

yes! i have taken homeopathy medicine for allergic cold. later i developed kidney stones and i had to turn to modern medicines for treatment. but when i asked the doc whether the homeopathy medicines are the reason for the stones, he said the homeopathy medicines are harmless but kind of advised me (indirectly) to stop taking it. but i know few people who got cured taking them, Masha Allah. but i stopped taking them immediately.

but as for as the alcohol issue, i came across a hadith (i dont exactly remember the source, im sorry) which states that when someone asked Prophet Mohammed salallahu alaihi wasalam about adding alcohol in medicine, Prophet (PBUH) replied in negative stating that alcohol will do more harm than good.

can someone find its source??? and please correct me if i am wrong.

Salam

This is not specifically for medicine, but for trace amounts of alcohol in foods/flavorings that I found:

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Question: In vanilla flavoring and many other flavorings there is alcohol. I am not sure of the percentage. These flavorings are used in icecream and many other processed foods and beverages. So can we eat these things?

Answered by the Fatwa Department Research Committee - chaired by Sheikh `Abd al-Wahhâb al-Turayrî

Sheikh Salman al-Oadah states the following:
Alcohol is forbidden because it intoxicates. The exact percentage of alcohol in a food or beverage has no effect on the ruling. The ruling applies to the food or beverage itself taken as a whole and not to its composition. Anyway, such small percentages of alcohol generally do not have any affect on a person who consumes the product.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Whatever intoxicates in large quantities, then a small quantity of it is forbidden.” [Sunan al-Tirmidhî (1865), Sunan Abî Dâwûd (3681), Sunan al-Nasâ’î (5607), Sunan Ibn Mâjah (3392), and Musnad Ahmad (5648)]

As long as the food or beverage in question does not intoxicate even when large quantities are consumed, then it is not prohibited.

The only other possible objection that might be raised against such a product is that alcohol is considered an impure substance according to many scholars. However, it is an established principle in Islamic Law that minute quantities of an impurity that are completely submerged in pure substances do not make those pure substances impure. The quantity of alcohol in such a product is generally so minute as to be effectively non-existent as far as matters of purification are concerned.

And Allah knows best.

I wonder, all syrup homeopathic meds have 90% alcohol in them. Why is there not more hue and cry in the muslim world over them? I've never once in my life heard of any scholar saying don't take them. If it was haraam, people would say strongly against it like everything else, right? Please advise. I stopped taking that medicine. I had a few doses, but I "imagined" I was getting drunk :lol: No idea how being drunk would feel so that was a bit futile, still. I convinced myself I was getting drunk so I stopped taking it.

Hmm. Well if you don't want to take any alcohol at all, other than consulting a chemist or other expert to find out if it is possible to evaporate the alcohol once it is mixed with water, without harming the effect of the medicine, the only other thing to do is to try to find someone who makes homeopathic medicines and ask them to custom make it with a water base (or possibly an oil base?). Water is probably better for you anyways, your body is 90% water and you need water to live. Although medicine with a water base will probably require refrigeration, and expire faster. :-(

As to why there is not an upset in the Muslim world over medicines with 90% alcohol, I am not sure of this as being a reason, as it could be completely wrong. I read a book once which had some rather poorly behaved Muslims getting very drunk on Vodka. Their excuse for this (and I think this was a very poor excuse and they were not very good Muslims) was that what was actually forbidden in the Koran were alcoholic drinks made from grains and fruit, but Vodka is made from potatoes. Anyway, I don't know what the Koran actually says on the subject, however, if it does actually specify that what is forbidden are alcoholic drinks made from grains and fruit, it could possibly be that the alcohol in medicines is made in laboratories or something out of chemicals. But I don't really know precisely what it says in the Koran about that subject.

Anyway, as I said, alcohol is not forbidden in my own religion, but I don't drink it anyways out of choice, for a couple reasons. First of all, it tastes horrible, secondly, it burns my throat, and thirdly, I got drunk once in Texas just to see what it was like. All that getting drunk did for me was to confuse the sequence of time inside my head. Since I get confused enough already without being drunk, I saw no need to repeat the experience. Beer - yech! Give me a yummy icecream float instead!