The Disease and the Cure, Part 1 (al-Da' wa al-Dawa') summary

Welcome. This is the first part of The Disease and the Cure, by the great scholar of Damascus, Ibn al-Qayyim.

The book began with a question. Someone wrote to him, describing a person struck by an affliction of the heart. He knew it was ruining his life in this world and the next. He had tried to free himself, and failed. What, he asked, is the cure?

Ibn al-Qayyim answered with this book. And he opened with hope. The Prophet ﷺ said, Allah has not sent down any disease without sending down its cure.

But before any doctor gives medicine, he explains the illness. Because a person who does not understand how much a poison is hurting him will never take the cure seriously.

So in this first part, we follow Ibn al-Qayyim as he explains, with great care, what sins actually do. To the heart. To the mind. To a person's life, his relationships, his work, and his final moments.

It is not meant to frighten us into despair. It is meant to wake us up. So that, in part two, we are ready to take the medicine.