العسل
A sweetener, food, and topical dressing described in the Qur'an as containing 'healing for people.' Prescribed repeatedly for a companion's stomach ailment until he recovered.
عَلَيْكُمْ بِالشِّفَاءَيْنِ: العَسَلِ وَالقُرْآنِ
“Hold fast to the two sources of healing: honey and the Qur'an.” (meaning, not a literal translation)
A man told the Prophet ﷺ his brother had a stomach complaint. He was told to give him honey — three times, until on the fourth the man recovered. On hearing this, the Prophet ﷺ said: "Allah has spoken the truth, and your brother's stomach has lied" (Sahih al-Bukhari 5684; Sahih Muslim 2217). Commentators generally read this as counsel to persist with a sound remedy at the right dose rather than abandon it too quickly. Separately, the Qur'an (16:69) describes honey emerging from the bee "of varying colors, wherein is healing for people" — one of the few substances named directly in the Qur'an alongside a therapeutic description.
Ibn al-Qayyim describes honey as cleansing for the blood vessels and intestines, useful both as food and applied externally to wounds, and especially suited to those with a cold, phlegmatic constitution. In Zad al-Ma'ad he discusses several forms of use: taken alone, dissolved in warm water as a drink, combined with vinegar as oxymel (sakanjabeen) for fevers, and applied directly to wounds, where he notes its ability to draw out moisture and resist decay in the wound bed. He also describes honey mixed with other named remedies — including black seed and various herbs — as a base for compound preparations aimed at specific ailments, rather than treating it as a single cure-all used the same way for everything.
Separately from the classical text, modern research on honey — particularly medical-grade honey such as Manuka — has documented real antibacterial and wound-healing properties, generally attributed to its low water activity, acidity, and hydrogen peroxide production, which together create conditions unfavorable to many bacteria. This is noted here as separate modern scientific context, not as an interpretation or validation of the hadith itself.