for that belongs to the completeness of your understanding. Deal with every person according to where that person stands, not according to where you stand. For women generally cannot attain the degree of complete men, except those two whose completeness is affirmed in the transmitted text: Mary, daughter of ʿImran, and Asiya, Pharaoh’s wife. The text from the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, affirms their completeness.
Be just in judgment, and extinguish the fire when you have finished needing it. Use the black seed, which is shuniz, for it is a cure for every illness except al-sam; al-sam is death.
(An Account of the Strength of Belief in a Report)
A man of standing among us was afflicted with leprosy. When the physicians saw him, with the illness firmly established in him, they all said, “This disease has no remedy.” A man versed in hadith, of the Banu ʿUfair of Labla, called Saʿd al-Suʿud, saw him. He had immense faith in hadith, holding it with certainty.
He said to him, “My good man, why do you not treat yourself?” The man replied, “The physicians say this illness has no remedy.” He said, “The physicians have spoken falsely, and the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, is more truthful than they. He said concerning the black seed that it is a cure for every illness, and this illness that has befallen you is included in that.”
Then he said, “Bring me black seed and honey.” Saʿd mixed the one with the other and smeared them over the sick man’s whole body, his head, and his face,
