Honey in the Quran: Surah An-Nahl, Hadith, Ibn al-Qayyim

Honey in Surah An-Nahl: A 1,400-Year Tradition of Shifa

Honey is one of only two physical substances the Quran calls shifa' — healing — by name. Surah An-Nahl 16:68–69 — "An-Nahl" itself meaning "The Bees" — describes the bee as inspired by Allah and the drink that emerges from its belly as one in which "there is healing for people." Authentic hadith preserved in Sahih al-Bukhari (5681 and 5684) and Sahih Muslim (2217a) record Prophet Muhammad ﷺ naming honey among three Prophetic remedies and prescribing it three times for an abdominal complaint. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350 CE) devotes a chapter of Al-Tibb al-Nabawi to it. Modern wound-care research, including Cochrane systematic reviews, has begun to study what the tradition catalogued.

The short answer, stated plainly

Yes, honey is named in the Quran. Surah An-Nahl 16:68–69 — the surah is itself called "The Bee" — describes the bee as divinely inspired and the honey it produces as a drink "in which there is healing for people." In the Prophetic tradition, Sahih al-Bukhari 5681 records the Prophet ﷺ saying healing is in three things — a gulp of honey, cupping, and cauterization — and Sahih al-Bukhari 5684 records him prescribing honey three times for an abdominal complaint. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya devotes a chapter of Al-Tibb al-Nabawi — Medicine of the Prophet — to honey's properties and uses. In the modern peer-reviewed literature, the most-developed body of evidence concerns wound care, with Cochrane systematic reviews and decades of research at the University of Waikato's Honey Research Unit. None of that modern evidence is a cure claim, and nothing in this article should be read as one. What follows is the full verified citation, the classical commentary, and the careful read on the contemporary research.

Surah An-Nahl 16:68–69 — "in it is healing for people"

The Quran applies the word shifa' (healing) to a physical substance only twice. The first instance is the Quran itself, in Surah Al-Isra 17:82. The second is honey, in Surah An-Nahl. The full Arabic phrase used of honey is fihi shifa'un li-l-nas — "in it is a healing for people."

The verses in full

"And your Lord inspired the bee, 'Take for yourself among the mountains, houses, and among the trees and what they construct. Then eat from all the fruits and follow the ways of your Lord laid down [for you].' There emerges from their bellies a drink, varying in colors, in which there is healing for people. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought." >— Surah An-Nahl (16:68–69), Sahih International translation. Available at https://quran.com/16/68-69

Two features of the Arabic are worth noticing for a reader who wants to read this verse closely. First, the word shifa' is indefinite — shifa'un, "a healing" rather than "the healing." The grammar opens the door to multiple kinds of benefit rather than positing honey as a singular cure-all. Second, the qualifier li-l-nas — "for people" — is universal in scope. The verse does not narrow honey's benefit to a specific population, condition, or era. The Prophetic teaching, as we will see, expands on the Quranic frame; it does not contradict it.

Why this verse is exceptional

That a chapter of the Quran is named for a creature is rare. That the creature is the bee — and that the bee is the only insect explicitly singled out as the recipient of divine inspiration, in the verb awha rabbuka ila al-nahl ("and your Lord inspired the bee") — is rarer still. Surah An-Nahl as a whole is one of the Quran's most extended meditations on the natural order as evidence: it moves through cattle, plants, the alternation of night and day, the seas, the stars, mountains, and rivers, returning across these images to the refrain that in each is ayatun li-qawmin yatafakkarun — a sign for people who reflect. The honey verse sits inside that argument. It is part of a larger contention that the world is legible.

Classical tafsir context

Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH / 1373 CE), the standard medieval Sunni commentator, reads shifa' in Surah An-Nahl 16:69 as both literal and metaphorical: literal in that honey itself is healing for the body, metaphorical in that the disciplined and ordered life of the bee — its habit of building, its habit of consuming only what is good, its habit of producing what is sweet for others — is itself a moral instruction for human beings. Al-Qurtubi (d. 671 AH / 1273 CE) in Al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Qur'an takes a similar line, with closer attention to the lexical choice of shifa'un (a healing) over al-shifa' (the healing). The classical reading does not flatten honey into a magic substance; it locates honey within a cosmology in which order, inspiration, and benefit are linked.

The surah's name

It is worth dwelling on the simple fact that a sura of the Quran is named An-Nahl, "The Bees." Of all the creatures named in the Quran — the cow (Al-Baqarah), the elephant (Al-Fil), the ant (Al-Naml), the spider (Al-'Ankabut) — the bee is the only one explicitly described as receiving wahy, divine inspiration, in the building and provisioning of its dwelling. The surah's structure and the verse's grammar together place honey above ordinary food on the Quranic register. It is not merely permitted; it is a sign.

Honey in the Sunnah — every authentic hadith, with gradings

Three foundational sahih narrations carry the substance of the Prophetic teaching on honey, and a fourth records the Prophet's ﷺ personal love of it. We follow the same discipline here that we apply across the Prophetic Pantry pillars: every hadith cited has a collection, an in-book number, a canonical number, a narrator, and a grading. Long-form "drink honey daily for forty days" attributions that circulate on wellness blogs are not in the canonical six and are not cited in this article.

Sahih al-Bukhari 5681 — the three remedies

The most-cited Prophetic remedies hadith sits in Imam al-Bukhari's Kitab al-Tibb — The Book of Medicine — Book 76 of Sahih al-Bukhari, as in-book hadith number 4.

"Healing is in three things: A gulp of honey, cupping, and branding with fire (cauterizing). But I forbid my followers to use cauterization." >— Sahih al-Bukhari 5681, Book 76 (Kitab al-Tibb), Hadith 4. Grading: sahih. Narrated by Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet ﷺ. Available at https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5681

This is the single most-cited Prophetic hadith on remedies. Its structure is worth noticing. The Prophet ﷺ names three traditional therapeutic categories — internal medicine in the form of honey, the ancient practice of cupping (hijamah), and cauterization — and in the same breath limits the third. It is a hadith of medical guidance and medical caution at once. Honey is the only one of the three the Prophet ﷺ does not qualify.

Sahih al-Bukhari 5684 — the abdominal-complaint narration

The narration that has received more theological commentary than any other hadith on honey is Sahih al-Bukhari 5684, in the same Kitab al-Tibb, as in-book hadith number 7.

A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, "My brother has some abdominal trouble." The Prophet ﷺ said, "Let him drink honey." The man came for the second time and the Prophet ﷺ said, "Let him drink honey." He came for the third time and the Prophet ﷺ said, "Let him drink honey." He returned again and said, "I have done that." The Prophet ﷺ then said, "Allah has said the truth, but your brother's abdomen has told a lie. Let him drink honey." So he made him drink honey and he was cured. >— Sahih al-Bukhari 5684, Book 76 (Kitab al-Tibb), Hadith 7. Grading: sahih. Narrated by Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet ﷺ. Available at https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5684

It would be easy to flatten this hadith into "honey cures stomachaches." That reading would miss what the narration is actually doing. The Prophet ﷺ has been told three times, by a man whose brother is genuinely ill, that the prescription is not working. On the fourth visit the Prophet ﷺ does not retract the prescription, soften it, or substitute another remedy. He says: "Allah has said the truth, but your brother's abdomen has told a lie." The Quranic statement that honey is shifa' for people stands; what the body is reporting is the lie. The hadith is, in its deepest register, an affirmation of the truthfulness of revelation in the face of apparent counter-evidence — a teaching about tawakkul, trust in God, and sabr, patience, far more than it is a clinical instruction. Read at that depth, it is one of the richest hadith in the Prophetic medical tradition.

Sahih Muslim 2217a — the Muslim parallel

The same narration is preserved in Imam Muslim's collection through a parallel chain ending at the same companion, Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him). It sits in Kitab al-Salam — The Book of Greetings — Book 39 of Sahih Muslim, as in-book hadith number 122.

A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and said: "My brother is suffering from a loose abdomen." The Prophet ﷺ said: "Give him honey." So he gave him that and then came and said: "I gave him honey but it has only made his bowels more loose." He told him three times and then he came on the fourth time and the Prophet ﷺ said: "Give him honey." He said: "I have given him (honey) but it has only made him worse." Thereupon the Prophet ﷺ said: "Allah has spoken the truth, and the belly of your brother has lied. Go and give him honey." So he gave him honey and he was completely cured. >— Sahih Muslim 2217a, Book 39 (Kitab al-Salam), Hadith 122. Grading: sahih. Narrated by Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet ﷺ. Available at https://sunnah.com/muslim:2217a

The presence of the same narrative arc in both Bukhari and Muslim — the two highest-authentication collections in Sunni Islam — is the kind of double-authentication classical hadith scholars regard as a particularly strong transmission signal. Two distinct collections, two distinct chains, the same matn. The reader can rely on it.

Sahih al-Bukhari 5599 — the Prophet's love of honey

A fourth narration is less juridical and more human. 'Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) — the Prophet's wife and one of the most prolific narrators of hadith in Sunni Islam — recorded a small but vivid detail about his daily life.

"The Prophet ﷺ used to like sweet edible things and honey." >— Sahih al-Bukhari 5599, Book 74 (Kitab al-Ashribah — The Book of Drinks), Hadith 25. Grading: sahih. Narrated by 'Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her). Available at https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5599

The narration is short. Its weight is in its ordinariness. The Prophet ﷺ ate honey, enjoyed honey, and was remembered by those closest to him for that. The tradition the rest of this article describes is not abstract pharmacology; it grew out of a household in which honey was a daily food.

A note on attributions to avoid

A handful of long-form honey-prescription narrations circulate widely on wellness blogs and Islamic ecommerce sites — most prominently the "drink honey for forty days" instruction. They are not in the canonical six collections. We do not cite them. The substance of the Prophetic teaching on honey is fully preserved in Bukhari 5681, Bukhari 5684, Muslim 2217a, and Bukhari 5599; relying on weak or unattributed material is unnecessary, and it undermines the hadith discipline a reader has a right to expect.

Ibn al-Qayyim's chapter on honey in Al-Tibb al-Nabawi (14th century)

The first major synthesis of Prophetic teaching on medicine with the classical medical tradition was produced by Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751 AH / 1350 CE), student of Ibn Taymiyyah and author of Zad al-Ma'ad, of which Al-Tibb al-Nabawi — Medicine of the Prophet — is a substantial section. The standard modern English edition, still in print, is Penelope Johnstone's Medicine of the Prophet, published by The Islamic Texts Society in Cambridge in 1998.

Ibn al-Qayyim's chapter on honey takes Surah An-Nahl 16:69 and the Bukhari narrations as its anchor and proceeds to catalogue honey within the Galenic humoral framework then dominant across the Islamic world — the same framework the Muslim Golden Age physicians had inherited from Greek medicine and refined over centuries of clinical experience. He classified honey as warming and drying in moderate degrees, an intermediate temperament that in classical theory made it broadly useful rather than narrowly specialized. He recorded its uses across registers: as a food, a drink, a sweetener, a preservative, a vehicle for delivering other simple drugs, an external application to wounds and ulcers, and an internal aid in cold-type complaints. In a much-quoted formulation he describes honey as serving in turn as "a food, a drink, a sweetener, a remedy, an unguent, and a perfume" — six roles in one substance.

We paraphrase rather than quote verbatim here. A direct quotation from Ibn al-Qayyim requires an exact page reference in a specific edition, and that reference belongs to the physical volume in hand. Readers with access to the Johnstone 1998 edition will find the honey material in the chapters on single substances; the Islamic Texts Society catalogue page, with ISBN 9780946621224, is at https://its.org.uk/catalogue/medicine-of-the-prophet-paperback/.

Ibn al-Qayyim must be read on his own terms. He was not writing a 21st-century pharmacology manual. He was writing a synthesis of Prophetic teaching and the best medical theory available in 14th-century Damascus, where Galenic-Arab medicine, Quranic exegesis, and hadith scholarship lived in the same library and the same scholarly habit. That synthesis is the reason his text is still read today as a primary source on classical Islamic medical thought, rather than as a curiosity.

Ibn Sina's entry on honey in the Canon of Medicine, Book 2 (11th century)

Three centuries before Ibn al-Qayyim, the Persian polymath Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037 CE) completed Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb — The Canon of Medicine — around 1025 CE. The Canon is a five-book medical encyclopedia that became the foundational medical textbook of both the Islamic world and, through Latin translation, European universities; it remained standard teaching material in Montpellier, Padua, and other continental universities into the 17th century. Few medical texts in human history have been used for so long by so many.

Book 2 of the Canon is the Materia Medica — an alphabetically arranged catalogue of approximately 800 simple drugs of plant, animal, and mineral origin. For each entry, Ibn Sina followed a standardized structure: name and synonyms, temperament (hot/cold, dry/moist), geographical and botanical description, method of selection and preparation, properties, and therapeutic uses. Honey ('asal) is among the catalogued substances. Ibn Sina classified it as warming and drying in moderate degrees, recorded its role as a preservative for other simple drugs, listed its applications to wounds and ulcers, and discussed compound preparations in which honey served as the vehicle — a practice that survives today in pharmaceutical excipients, the inactive carriers that deliver active ingredients. He distinguished between fresh and aged honey and between the honeys of different floras, noting that taste, color, and viscosity could be read as signs of provenance and quality.

The standard modern English rendering of Book 2 is Laleh Bakhtiar's edition, The Canon of Medicine, Volume 2: Natural Pharmaceuticals (Kazi Publications, 1999; ISBN 9781567448122). A freely available Hamdard Arabic-English edition of Book II is hosted at https://www.rjwhelan.co.nz/articles/pdf/CANON-Book-II-Hamdard.pdf. As with Ibn al-Qayyim, we deliberately paraphrase rather than quote verbatim — a direct quotation from a classical pharmaceutical entry requires an exact page reference in a specific edition.

The lineage matters and is worth stating in a single line. A food named in the Quran was instructed by the Prophet ﷺ as a remedy in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim; was catalogued in the 11th century into the central pharmaceutical reference of the Islamic world; was re-synthesized in the 14th century by Ibn al-Qayyim within Prophetic medicine; was taught in European universities through the 17th century; and is still the subject of peer-reviewed research in 2025. That is a 1,400-year clinical and cultural record. It is not a wellness fad.

What modern peer-reviewed research has actually studied

This is historical and scholarly context, not medical advice. Consult a qualified physician for any health concern.

Honey is one of the most-studied natural substances in modern wound-care research, but the literature must be read with two important boundaries in view. First, the substance studied in clinical trials is generally medical-grade honey — sterilized, standardized, sometimes specifically calibrated for antibacterial activity — not the ordinary retail jar in a kitchen pantry. Second, the strongest modern signal concerns topical wound application, not systemic use for unrelated conditions. What follows is a careful summary. It is not a claim that any product cures, treats, or prevents any disease.

Wound care — the body of work from the University of Waikato

Peter Molan (d. 2015) of the Honey Research Unit at the University of Waikato in New Zealand published a foundational paper in 1999 titled "The role of honey in the management of wounds" in the Journal of Wound Care (volume 8, issue 8, pages 415–418; PMID: 10808853). His career across the 1990s and 2000s catalogued the antibacterial activity of honey across multiple mechanisms — the high osmolarity of concentrated sugar, the slow release of hydrogen peroxide as glucose is enzymatically converted, and a range of phenolic and flavonoid compounds present at varying concentrations depending on floral source. Molan's work is now the standard starting point for the clinical literature on the topic.

A 2014 review by Hadagali and Chua in European Food Research and Technology — "The anti-inflammatory and wound healing properties of honey," DOI: 10.1007/s00217-014-2297-6 — consolidated the mechanism-of-action literature on honey as a topical agent, with attention to the polyphenol fraction and the role of pH in antibacterial activity. A 2013 review in the Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences by Eteraf-Oskouei and Najafi — "Traditional and Modern Uses of Natural Honey in Human Diseases: A Review" — surveyed the broader investigational literature, noting honey's documented inhibitory activity against approximately sixty bacterial species in laboratory conditions, and is freely available at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3758027/.

Cochrane systematic review — honey for wounds

The gold-standard evidence summary on honey for wound care is the Cochrane systematic review by Jull and colleagues, "Honey as a topical treatment for wounds," last updated in 2015 (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2015, Issue 3, CD005083; DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD005083.pub4). The review aggregated 26 randomized and quasi-randomized trials with approximately 3,011 participants. Its conclusions are honest and worth reading carefully: there is high-quality evidence, drawn principally from two trials with about 992 participants, that honey dressings heal partial-thickness burns more quickly than conventional dressings — by approximately 4.68 days. For most other wound categories, the evidence is uneven; the authors note that "it is difficult to draw overall conclusions regarding the effects of honey as a topical treatment for wounds" because of heterogeneous patient populations, varying comparators, and generally low evidence quality across most wound types beyond partial-thickness burns. That is the honest read.

The clinical take-home is narrow, not broad. Medical-grade honey, in clinical settings, has documented benefit for partial-thickness burns. That is not the same statement as "spread retail honey on a wound at home and it will heal."

Sidr and manuka — what makes premium honeys distinctive

Two single-origin honeys have attracted the most modern research attention because of unusually high antibacterial activity. Manuka honey, produced by bees foraging on the manuka bush (Leptospermum scoparium) in New Zealand and parts of Australia, contains methylglyoxal at concentrations far above ordinary honeys; it is graded commercially under the Unique Manuka Factor (UMF) system, which correlates with non-peroxide antibacterial activity. Sidr honey, produced by bees foraging on the Sidr tree (Ziziphus spina-christi and related species), primarily in Yemen, the Hejaz, and parts of Pakistan, has been studied for similar reasons, including in the work of N. S. Al-Waili. His 2004 paper in the Journal of Medicinal Food — "Investigating the antimicrobial activity of natural honey and its effects on the pathogenic bacterial infections of surgical wounds and conjunctiva" (volume 7, issue 2, pages 210–222; PMID: 15298770) — reported complete inhibition of all tested bacterial isolates at honey concentrations between 30 and 100 percent in laboratory conditions, with comparable effectiveness to local antibiotics in animal models of surgical wound and conjunctival infection.

A botanical note that matters. The Sidr tree itself is mentioned by name in the Quran — Surah Al-Waqi'ah 56:28 ("amid lote-trees with thorns removed") and Surah Saba 34:16, where the Quranic al-sidr refers to the tree, not to honey produced from its blossoms. Sidr honey is therefore connected to the Quranic Sidr tree directly through botany and indirectly through tradition; it is not itself named in the Quran. The connection is strong enough to be worth stating; precise enough that we say so plainly.

How to read this evidence

The pattern across the modern literature is consistent. Researchers report meaningful signals — antibacterial activity, faster healing of certain burn categories, mechanisms of action that survive scientific scrutiny. Reviewers caution that study quality is mixed and that medical-grade honey in a clinical setting is not the same product as a jar at home. That cautious posture is the honest one. The historical record — Quran, hadith, Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn Sina — stands on its own as tradition. The modern evidence is a separate, ongoing conversation. We do not conflate the two.

This article is for educational and historical interest. It is not medical advice. Consult a qualified physician before making any decision about your health, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, on prescription medication, or managing a chronic condition. Honey should never be given to infants under twelve months old, due to the recognized risk of infant botulism.

What to look for when choosing honey

If the tradition has earned your interest, the practical question becomes how to find a jar that honors it. A few compositional facts are worth knowing before buying, and none of them are health claims.

Raw, not pasteurized. Heat above approximately 40°C destroys honey's natural enzymes (notably glucose oxidase, the enzyme behind hydrogen-peroxide release that the modern literature studies) and degrades its phenolic profile. Raw honey — strained at most, never heated to pasteurization temperatures — preserves the compositional features that ancient and modern observers alike have noticed.

Single-origin, not blended. Single-origin honeys trace to one floral source and one geographical region — Sidr from Yemen or the Hejaz, manuka from New Zealand, acacia from the Balkans, heather from the British uplands, wildflower from a named valley. Blends average out the distinctive compositional features that make a particular honey worth its premium price. A producer who names the floral source, the country of origin, and the apiary is a producer who knows what they are selling.

Crystallization is a sign of authenticity. Raw, unprocessed honey crystallizes naturally over time — within months for high-glucose honeys, within years for high-fructose ones. Pasteurized and ultrafiltered honeys often do not crystallize for the simple reason that the crystallization seeds (pollen grains, beeswax fragments) have been removed. A jar that crystallizes on the shelf is in most cases a jar of intact honey. Warming gently in a water bath restores liquidity without destroying the underlying compounds.

Glass bottling, kept out of light. Light degrades the antibacterial activity of honey over time. Dark glass, or glass kept in a cupboard rather than on a sunlit windowsill, protects the jar.

Halal certification considerations. Pure honey is halal by default. Bees process nectar internally, but the resulting honey is the bee's product rather than its blood or secreted-from-haram-substrate, and the consensus across Sunni schools is that it is permissible without specific certification. Blended honey products with added ingredients — flavorings, supplements, herbal infusions — should be checked for the halal status of the additives.

Country and producer transparency. A premium jar should name the country, the region, the floral source, and where possible the apiary or cooperative. Sidr honey labeled "Yemen" is a starting point; Sidr honey labeled with a specific governorate and a named beekeeping cooperative is a far stronger provenance signal.

From the LAYNUR collection

We built this store around products with a documented place in the Islamic tradition, and honey is the substance the Quran most directly describes as shifa' — a healing for people. Our raw single-origin honeys are sourced from named regions, never heated to pasteurization, bottled in glass, and accompanied by the country and floral source on the label. We sell them at the grade Ibn al-Qayyim would have recognized — kept whole, kept clear, kept worthy of the verse the surah was named for.

• Raw Sidr honey — single-origin, from a named region, never pasteurized, bottled in glass. The honey produced by bees foraging on the Sidr tree the Quran names in Surah Al-Waqi'ah and Surah Saba. (Product slug pending catalogue launch.)
• Raw honey and black seed blend — the two substances the Prophetic tradition names side by side, in one jar. Black seed crushed into raw honey, in the form Ibn al-Qayyim describes as one of the classical preparations. (Product slug pending catalogue launch.)

For a companion piece on the other anchor of Prophetic medicine, see Is Black Seed in the Quran? — the same citation discipline applied to Nigella sativa, with honey appearing in classical preparations as a vehicle for the seed. For the second food the Quran names by dedicated oath, see Olive Oil in the Quran and Sunnah. A broader umbrella piece on the wider tradition of Prophetic medicine — covering honey, black seed, olive oil, and dates together — is in preparation.

Frequently asked questions

Is honey mentioned in the Quran?

Yes. Surah An-Nahl 16:68–69 describes the bee as divinely inspired and the honey it produces as a drink "in which there is healing for people." The surah is itself named An-Nahl, "The Bees," and is the only place in the Quran where an insect is singled out as the recipient of divine inspiration through the verb awha rabbuka ila al-nahl.

Which hadith mention honey, and are they authentic?

The most-cited authentic narrations are Sahih al-Bukhari 5681 (Book 76, Hadith 4: healing in three — a gulp of honey, cupping, cauterization), Sahih al-Bukhari 5684 (Book 76, Hadith 7: the abdominal-complaint narration), Sahih Muslim 2217a (Book 39, Hadith 122: the Muslim parallel), and Sahih al-Bukhari 5599 (Book 74, Hadith 25: 'Aisha's narration that the Prophet ﷺ liked sweets and honey). All four are graded sahih. Long-form "drink honey daily for forty days" attributions found on wellness blogs are not in the canonical six collections and should not be cited.

Did the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ recommend honey?

Yes, in multiple authentic hadith. Sahih al-Bukhari 5681 records him naming honey among three remedies — the only one of the three he did not qualify or restrict — and Sahih al-Bukhari 5684 records him prescribing honey three times for an abdominal complaint, declaring on the fourth instance that "Allah has said the truth, but your brother's abdomen has told a lie." The narration is preserved in parallel in Sahih Muslim 2217a.

What did Ibn al-Qayyim say about honey?

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350 CE) devoted a chapter of Al-Tibb al-Nabawi — Medicine of the Prophet — to honey, classifying it within the Galenic humoral framework as warming and drying in moderate degrees and recording its uses as food, drink, sweetener, preservative, vehicle for delivering other simple drugs, external application to wounds, and internal aid. He frames honey as serving in turn as a food, a drink, a sweetener, a remedy, an unguent, and a perfume.

Is Sidr honey the same as the Sidr tree mentioned in the Quran?

The Sidr tree (Ziziphus spina-christi and related species) is mentioned in the Quran in Surah Al-Waqi'ah 56:28 ("amid lote-trees with thorns removed") and Surah Saba 34:16. Sidr honey is honey produced by bees foraging on Sidr blossoms, primarily in Yemen, the Hejaz, and parts of Pakistan; the connection between the Quranic tree and the modern honey is direct and well-attested, but the honey itself is not named in the Quran — only the tree is.

Is all honey halal?

Yes. Pure honey is halal by default across Sunni schools and requires no specific certification. Blended honey products that contain added ingredients — flavorings, supplements, herbal infusions — should be checked for the halal status of the additives, but the honey itself is permissible.

Has modern science studied honey's healing properties?

Yes. The most-developed body of peer-reviewed evidence concerns wound care. The Cochrane systematic review by Jull and colleagues (2015) reports high-quality evidence that honey dressings heal partial-thickness burns faster than conventional dressings, while cautioning that the evidence for most other wound categories is uneven. The mechanisms studied include high osmolarity, hydrogen-peroxide release, and phenolic content. Clinical decisions belong with a qualified physician, and the substance studied in clinical trials is generally medical-grade honey rather than retail jars.

Sources

Quran

1. Surah An-Nahl (16:68–69), Sahih International translation. "And your Lord inspired the bee, 'Take for yourself among the mountains, houses, and among the trees and what they construct…' There emerges from their bellies a drink, varying in colors, in which there is healing for people. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought." Available at https://quran.com/16/68-69
2. Surah Al-Waqi'ah (56:28), Sahih International translation. "Among lote trees with thorns removed." — Quranic reference to the Sidr tree (al-sidr). Available at https://quran.com/56/28
3. Surah Saba (34:16), Sahih International translation. — Second Quranic reference to the Sidr tree, in the account of Saba. Available at https://quran.com/34/16

Hadith (authentic)

1. Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 76 (Kitab al-Tibb — The Book of Medicine), Hadith 4. Canonical number: 5681. Grading: sahih. Narrator: Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet ﷺ. "Healing is in three things: a gulp of honey, cupping, and branding with fire (cauterizing). But I forbid my followers to use cauterization." Available at https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5681
2. Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 76 (Kitab al-Tibb), Hadith 7. Canonical number: 5684. Grading: sahih. Narrator: Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet ﷺ. The honey-for-abdominal-complaint narration. Available at https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5684
3. Sahih Muslim, Book 39 (Kitab al-Salam — The Book of Greetings), Hadith 122. Canonical number: 2217a. Grading: sahih. Narrator: Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet ﷺ. The Muslim parallel of Sahih al-Bukhari 5684. Available at https://sunnah.com/muslim:2217a
4. Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 74 (Kitab al-Ashribah — The Book of Drinks), Hadith 25. Canonical number: 5599. Grading: sahih. Narrator: 'Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her). "The Prophet ﷺ used to like sweet edible things and honey." Available at https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5599

Classical Islamic scholarship

1. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751 AH / 1350 CE). Medicine of the Prophet (Al-Tibb al-Nabawi). Translated by Penelope Johnstone. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1998. ISBN 9780946621224. Publisher catalogue page: https://its.org.uk/catalogue/medicine-of-the-prophet-paperback/ — Chapter on honey ('asal).
2. Ibn Sina / Avicenna (d. 1037 CE). The Canon of Medicine, Volume 2: Natural Pharmaceuticals (Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, Book 2 — Materia Medica). Adapted by Laleh Bakhtiar from translations by O. Cameron Gruner and Mazar H. Shah. Chicago: Kazi Publications, 1999. ISBN 9781567448122. Hamdard Arabic-English edition of Book II (free PDF): https://www.rjwhelan.co.nz/articles/pdf/CANON-Book-II-Hamdard.pdf — Entry on honey ('asal).
3. Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH / 1373 CE). Tafsir al-Qur'an al-'Azim — classical Sunni commentary on Surah An-Nahl 16:69, including the reading of shifa' as both literal and metaphorical. English summary via QuranX: https://quranx.com/Tafsir/Kathir/16.69
4. Al-Qurtubi (d. 671 AH / 1273 CE). Al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Qur'an — classical Sunni commentary on Surah An-Nahl 16:69. Available via altafsir.com / quranx.com.

Modern academic (peer-reviewed)

1. Molan, P. C. (1999). "The role of honey in the management of wounds." Journal of Wound Care, 8(8), 415–418. PMID: 10808853. PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10808853/
2. Jull, A. B., Cullum, N., Dumville, J. C., Westby, M. J., Deshpande, S., and Walker, N. (2015). "Honey as a topical treatment for wounds." Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2015, Issue 3, CD005083. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD005083.pub4. PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25742878/
3. Al-Waili, N. S. (2004). "Investigating the antimicrobial activity of natural honey and its effects on the pathogenic bacterial infections of surgical wounds and conjunctiva." Journal of Medicinal Food, 7(2), 210–222. PMID: 15298770. PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15298770/
4. Hadagali, M. D., and Chua, L. S. (2014). "The anti-inflammatory and wound healing properties of honey." European Food Research and Technology, 239(6), 1003–1014. DOI: 10.1007/s00217-014-2297-6. Springer: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00217-014-2297-6
5. Eteraf-Oskouei, T., and Najafi, M. (2013). "Traditional and Modern Uses of Natural Honey in Human Diseases: A Review." Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences, 16(6), 731–742. PubMed Central: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3758027/

Reference / encyclopedic

1. "An-Nahl." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An-Nahl — for general background on the surah's name, structure, and place in the Quranic order. Used only for non-contested framing; substantive claims anchor to the primary sources above.
2. "Ziziphus spina-christi." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziziphus_spina-christi — for the botanical link between the Quranic Sidr tree and Sidr honey.

This article is for educational and historical interest. It is not medical advice. Consult a qualified physician before making any decision about your health, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, on prescription medication, or managing a chronic condition. Honey should never be given to infants under twelve months old, due to the recognized risk of infant botulism.