The writer, the Syrian doctor, Dr. Abd al-Salam al-Ajili, narrates that the Umayyad caliph Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan was one of the first Arabs to be diagnosed with diabetes, inferring what he says from the phenomena of obesity, the abundance of his fat, the largeness of his stomach, and the sincerity of his features. And he points out that in those days, people in Medina, and in the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, were close to a covenant, with a poor life and the manners of the desert, which saw luxury as a defect and following souls’ lusts as a sin.
Al-Ajili recalled the story of Muawiyah’s coming to the Hajj with Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, so Omar would put his finger on the board of Muawiya and then lift it from the trap, if he lifted it, it left a clear effect, so Omar said: Squirt! O Commander of the Faithful, I will tell you of the land of baths, countryside, and desires.
In his long article, Al-Ajili attributed the disease to diabetes to changing the dietary pattern, and making it a cause of his death. He who lives in Medina and Makkah at that time often has nothing but wheat, barley, dates, water, and perhaps raisins, while Muawiya in the Levant enjoyed delicious food, drinks, and fruits. And dessert, what I gorge on. And al-Ajili – may God have mercy on him – has evidence that the first Umayyad caliph was diagnosed with diabetes, including eating a lot at a rate of seven times a day, his being afflicted with strength, his asceticism in women, the interruption of his lineage, the appearance of an abscess in his side that could not be cured quickly, and delivering the sermon on the pulpit sitting, and these conclusions are based on What science has reached later, in diagnosing the effect of diabetes on the body, bearing in mind that diabetes was not known until the twenties of the twentieth century, so the Canadian doctor (Frederick Grant Banting) discovered the treatment (insulin) in 1921, although its symptoms were described in (The Ebers Papyrus) It is one of the first Egyptian papyri, written around 1550 B.C. It includes one hundred and ten pages, and is twenty meters long. It deals with herbal science, and pathological conditions in which medication is beneficial for the patient. The copy is currently located in the university library (Laypitzg) in Germany.
I do not know whether Muawiyah, may God be pleased with him, went to the Levant voluntarily, or out of necessity, or in response to the call of duty, but what he succeeded in extending influence and preparing the ground for the Umayyad caliphate, and what befell him as a result of that in terms of physical fatigue, and perhaps remorse, even if he believed in justice His case is like other political players, except that all of the above exhausts the body and weakens the organs, even if the person is in gardens of bliss.
My reading of Muawiya’s story and its transmission (actually) sparked in my mind an approach between the sensual and the emotional, the apparent physical and the inner spiritual, the material and the moral. Food may make it sick more than healthy, and nourish it more than fatten it. Comparison and analogy between Muawiyah’s physical diet, which does not belong to his first environment, and feeding some of us with values, behaviors, and ideas that are not from our cultural heritage, nor from our authentic literature, is an analogy that makes the two feedings the suspect of the cause, and not all. A change of personality, and he who does not straighten his mustaches; poisoned.
By restoring Dr. Al-Ajili’s article, I wanted to give an example of societies that had shifts without objective gradation, without logical growth, or that they moved forward materially out of compulsion rather than by choice. to a complex environment, although the damage to the plant is limited to it, while the human being is a carrier and infectious to others, genetically, sensory, and morally; And just as changing dietary habits caused the first Umayyad caliph to develop diabetes, similarly, intractable moral diseases destroy the roots of human societies by virtue of the strangeness of culture and data.
There is no doubt that the mover from one place to another (a person or consciousness) (individual or community) does not remain the same; The environment has changed, the lifestyle has changed, the quality of eating and drinking has changed, the lifestyle has been turned upside down, the time of sleeping and waking up has been transformed, and all of this is reflected in health, the way of thinking, and the way of living. The emotional and emotional within us is an echo of the real and life outside us.
How many nations and peoples change their way of life, and the change is negatively reflected on health, family structure, economic capabilities, and collective awareness, so moving from space to space, from experience to experience, from idea to idea, and from meaning to meaning, all of this leaves its scars in the soul and memory.
We used to eat from what we grow. Today we eat what we buy, so we have transformed from a close relationship with the land to a close relationship with the bakery and the restaurant, and we used to breastfeed from our mothers, milk and valuables, and with the advent of booze, our relationship with the bottle, the bottle (inanimate objects) and our drinking with milk imported a lot from the air.
In past times, educators were (strong fathers and mothers), virtuous teachers, normal neighbors, and pure preachers. Preaching and guidance in my childhood was limited and the commitment wide, because society is practical, public space is productive, and behaviors are disciplined. Poisons in our soil, and they nourished us with what provokes the right and the left, and we almost depended on them except for a little.
And we are today in a time when education and awareness-building may be undertaken by the teacher (Tik Tok), the educator (Snapchat), and the preacher (Instagram), and there is no safety from troubles, epidemics, diseases, ailments, and ailments. Diseases, and if we do not take care of the nutrients of awareness and diet controls, generations are at risk of intellectual and behavioral threats that are more deadly than the health problems resulting from a change in dietary pattern.
And if they said (Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are), then we can say (Tell me what you hear and what you see so that I will tell you how you are).
Ali bin Muhammad Al-Rubai