By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel
OK . . .
One might wonder where did this practice of drinking camel urine originate from? One Hadith records, “Some people from the tribe of ‘Ukl came to the Prophet Mohammed and embraced Islam. The climate of Medina did not suit them, so the Prophet ordered them to go to the (herd of milch) camels of charity and to drink, their milk and urine (as a medicine). Indeed, there are several other Hadiths that refer to this practice as well.[ii] And while many Jewish readers in particular might find the idea of drinking camel urine as silly—perhaps even disgusting, the Talmud seems to have had a different opinion on this matter. For those suffering from jaundice, the Sages of the Talmud also recommended drinking donkey urine as a cure.
The sages asked: is one permitted to drink donkey urine, to cure jaundice? Why should one ask specifically about donkey urine? It is clear to us that the urine of camels and of horses is permitted for drinking since their urine is clear and is, in essence, the water which they drank. Water went in, and water came out. The donkey’s urine comes out cloudy. There are grounds to permit it and grounds to forbid it. What are the issues under debate? On one hand, the urine is cloudy, and one might suppose that its cloudiness stems from the process of urine production, which is similar to the process of milk production, from the donkey’s own body. Just as one is forbidden to drink the milk of an ass, so is one forbidden to drink the urine.
Conversely, there is room for leniency, and the donkey’s urine may be permitted as one is permitted the urine of the camel and the horse; one may claim that the donkey’s urine does not undergo a process of production like that of milk, but that it has the status of water which went in and water which went out. The reason that it is cloudy is not because something of the donkey has been mixed in, but because the donkey’s bodily vapors influence the urine and turn it cloudy.[iii]
In the end, the Talmud prohibited the consumption of donkey urine, but among the Halakhic scholars, there appears to be no consensus on this matter.[iv] The Talmud in tractate Shabbat points out:
Rabina to Raba, “What is the law on drinking urine on the Sabbath?” He said to him, “We already learned in the Mishna: One may drink all drinks, and people do not drink urine and is not considered a drink. It is only consumed for medical purposes and is therefore prohibited.[v]
While we will never know whether the Rabbis would have treated the coronavirus with camel urine, but if nothing else, the story illustrates some of the unusual commonalities Jews and Muslims share. Fortunately, drinking urine as medicine never historically caught on in Judaism like it did in Islam.
The practice of using urine probably began in ancient times when people realized that it was a sterile liquid that could treat open wounds. In ancient Egypt, camel urine was used for ritualistic purposes.[vi] This tradition existed in oriental countries and still is observed in ancient China, and India. Mahatma Gandhi, for an example, regularly imbibed his urine and he led India to independence. Although Hippocrates never recommended anyone drinking urine, he was one of the first physicians to diagnostically use urine as a tool for prognosis and prediction of outcomes of illness. This science became known as uroscopy, and it later became a paradigm for later diagnostic strategies and is considered an important milestone in the history of clinical diagnosis.
According to one British naturopath named John W. Armstrong, he interpreted the biblical verse, “Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well” (Prov. 5:15), as referring to this ancient practice. This writer cannot agree with Armstrong’s odd interpretation, but he claims to have treated thousands of patients and in 1944, he published, “The Water of Life: A treatise on urine therapy,” which became a founding document of the field. Readers would be surprised to know there are hundreds of peer-reviewed medical articles written by Muslim physicians claiming how camel urine can cure a variety of illnesses.[vii]
Although Maimonides recognized camel milk as possessing certain curative properties, to the best of my knowledge he is silent on camel urine as a medicinal cure for anything.
MERS & the Coronavirus
People seem to forget that COVID-19 is closely related to another famous coronavirus known as MERS. Saudi Arabian newspapers observed that one year at the Hajj, the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) coronavirus sent at least forty-six people to the hospital. Saudi physicians and the World Health Organization wondered: Why were the MERS infections so high in Muslim countries? The answer was obvious. In Islamic countries, there is a widespread custom of drinking camel urine. And the Saudi Health Ministry had to issue a warning against camel contact. As the writer Richard Ibrahim concluded:
Indeed, such is the tragedy. Not only is drinking camel urine not beneficial; it appears to have been directly linked to a coronavirus outbreak: In 2012, only Saudi Arabia—the home of Islam and its holy cities—was plagued by another form of coronavirus (MERS-CoV, aka “Camel Flu”). A whopping 40% of the more than one thousand Saudis who contracted it died. One of its causes, which the World Health Organization strongly warned against, was the drinking of camel urine.
Relying on other forms of “sharia medicine . . . has also led to casualties. In Iran alone, a coronavirus patient who was told by a cleric to smell roses as a cure died soon thereafter; and the son of a prominent ayatollah confessed that his father died because he trusted so-called “Islamic medicine specialists.”[viii]
In the final analysis, there are better ways of curing people from the COVID-19, and given the track record with the MERS coronavirus, it would be prudent for traditional Muslims to disregard the Hadiths and keep away from drinking the camel urine.
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NOTES
[i] https://en.radiofarda.com/a/drink-camel-urine-to-cure-coronavirus-prophetic-medicine-man-says/30565663.html
[ii] Sahih Bukhari 8:82:794: Anas b. Malik reported that some people belonging (to the tribe) of ‘Uraina came to Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) at Medina, but they found its climate uncongenial. So Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) said to them: If you so like, you may go to the camels of Sadaqa and drink their milk and urine. They did so and were all right. Sahih Muslim 16:4130 “A traditionalist told me from one who had told him from Muhammad b. Talha from Uthman v. Abdul-Rahman that in the raid of Muharib and B. Thalaba the apostle had captured a slave called Yasar, and he put him in charge of his milch-camels to shepherd them in the neighborhood of al-Jamma. Some men of Qays of Kubba of Bajila came to the apostle suffering from an epidemic and enlarged spleens, and the apostle told them that if they went to the milch camels and drank their milk and their urine they would recover, so off they went. From The Sirat Rasul Allah ( The Life of The Prophet of God ), by Ibn Ishaq (3) pages 677, 678. Comp. https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur%27an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Urine
[iii] Steinsaltz explained: The urine of a donkey is cloudy and its color occasionally appears similar to that of milk, due to a high concentration of calcium carbonate crystals (CaCO3) and mucus. Urine, in contrast to milk, is not produced by the body, but it does contain ingredients that were absorbed by the body and excreted from it. Therefore, the Gemara inquires as to whether its halakhic status is comparable to that of milk or not.
[iv] BT Bechoroth 7a. The Talmudic discussion concerning camel urine is related to why is bee honey permitted to eat, since it comes from the secretions of an unclean insect in the Bible.
[v] BT Shabbat 110a with Steinsaltz’s commentary.
[vi] Tea was sometimes derived from strained camel urine, and also used as a source of salt.
[vii] The database revealed articles such as:
- “Camel urine components display anti-cancer properties in vitro”
Journal of Ethnopharmacology –
- “Effect of camel urine on the cytological and biochemical changes induced by cyclophosphamide in mice” —
Journal of Ethnopharmacology
- “Camel urine inhibits inflammatory angiogenesis in murine sponge implant angiogenesis model”
Biomedicine & Aging Pathology
[viii] https://americanprophet.org/Camel-Urine-Islams-Best-Cure-for-Coronavirus-Ibrahim_3739.htm
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Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel, spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista, may be contacted via michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com