Why Did Prophet Muhammad Say to Dip a Fly in a Drink
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Question:
Why did Prophet Muhammad say to dip a fly into a drink if it falls in it? - Exploring the hadith about dipping a fly into a drink, its interpretations, and the historical medical context behind it. :::
Answer:
You asked a question and quoted hadith reference - so in the same reference the reason is mentioned. Question is how did you manage to read half of the sentence and miss the 2nd half …the “why” part is answered there.
Prophet Muhammad saws did not ask Muslims to catch flies and dip in milk before drinking. What he advised was that IF a fly happens to fall in your food then what should be done.
There are millions of people especially kids who die of hunger every year and there are many who struggle to get 2 square meals a day and to those people wasting a glass of milk or wasting food just because a fly went into it is not practical.
Even in restaurants or during marriage ceremonies when food is prepared in bulk what will a person do for example if a fly falls in say a sweet dish preparation which is being done in a big container with more than 50 liters of milk.
Considering that fly carries disease causing bacteria can we take a chance and risk disease for people who are going to eat the food OR are we going to throw the entire preparation resulting in enormous wastage of time and money ??
Hence Islam offers a practical solution and prophet saws mentioned that one wing of the fly carries disease and the other its antidote. However prophet saws did not force people to take such a food - if anyone does not want to eat it still it is his wish.
Now many people have posted that there are many diseases being carried through these flies and that many people die due to diseases caused by flies. However this does not in any way counter what prophet saws said.
Can anyone prove that a person was infected with a disease being carried by a fly which had fallen in his food accidentally in spite of him dipping the fly completely in the food (on which it had fallen accidentally) as advised by prophet saws ? If anyone can prove this then only he can seriously counter what prophet saws had said. However if someone states that there are many disease caused by flies etc. then no body is questioning / contesting this - in fact that’s the reason why prophet advised ie to prevent person from the disease causing germs carried by the fly.