year-old housewife who recently started using Islamic alternative cures spoke of newfound tranquility after a turbulent time in her life. Also, her abdominal pains are finally easing. Suratmi, who suffers from an ovarian cyst, has been taking a mix of herbal treatments harking back to the dawn of Islam. She is among a growing number of Muslims in Southeast Asia turning away from Western medical care in favor of Al-Tibb Al-Nabbawi, or Medicine of the Prophet. “I heard that so many people have been healed,” said Suratmi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. The bulk of those seeking out Islamic clinics, hospitals and pharmacies appear to be moderate Muslims, reflecting a rise in Islamic consciousness worldwide. “Islamic medicine carries a cachet that, by taking it, you are reinforcing your faith — and the profits go to Muslims,” says Sidney Jones, an expert on Islam in Southeast Asia with the International Crisis Group. These Islamic products have become a big business with a customer base in Southeast Asia alone of roughly 250 million Muslims. Malaysia's Petronas University of Technology is developing an application for mobile devices to query what Islamic remedies are recommended for anything from toothaches to depression, says Hanita Daud, one of the developers. Practitioners say many ingredients in today's treatments were used in the Prophet's time, including honey, olive oil, bee pollen, dates and black caraway. In Indonesia, Islamic alternative healing really took off after a government promotional campaign in 2009, says Brury Machendra, owner of the Insani Herbal Clinic in suburban Jakarta where Suratmi and up to 400 other patients per month seek treatment. Only one such clinic existed in the Depok suburb two years ago, but now there are 20, with 70 others waiting for government permits. Machendra, who also is secretary-general of the Traditional Herbal Medicine Association of Indonesia, says most Indonesian Muslims don't doubt conventional medicine. But he says Indonesia's health services are so poor and expensive that many people seek out alternatives. His clinic offers herbal medicine, a bloodletting treatment known as bekam. He acknowledges that clinics such as his benefit from traditional Muslim rules forbidding certain ingredients. Some doctors are trying to bring Muslim elements into the Western tradition. “We practice evidence-based medicine but we incorporate the spiritual for both our patients and staff,” says Dr. Ishak Mas'ud, director of Al Islam hospital in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. The 60-bed hospital, which attracts patients as far away as Somalia, stresses holistic diagnoses, refrains from giving definite prognoses since “death is in the hands of Allah,” and believes it is wrong to practice medicine with profit in mind, he says. Fees are 20 to 30 percent lower than at most of the Malaysian hospitals. “I am just the instrument of Allah and doctors must tell their patients this,” Ishak says. “You know doctors can be arrogant. They will tell you that they can cure you in five days and five days later you can be six feet underground. It's not me that is healing. We are not powerful. In Islamic medicine, this is the key, the main concept.”
