Posts

Recommended Times for Hijama-Therapy

/in , /by

Recommended-Times-for-Hijama-TherapyBest Weekday for Hijama
It is impossible to establish an universal rule for the best day of the week for Hijama. Many Muslims (especially from the sub-continent) consider Thursdays to be a specially blessed day of the week for Sakat (which means Charity, Welfare – it is one of the Five Pillars of Islam). Many Hakim (Muslim healers) see Thursdays as the best week day for a Hijama treatment. I too like to do special treatments on Thursdays but generally recommend to select less busy week days which you can relax on and use to focus on your well-being. The Hijama-session itself takes a total of approx. 1-2 hours.

Best Time of Day for Hijama
The best day time for Hijama is – similar to cupping and leeching – in the morning and before lunch time. Ideally you have eaten nothing or little before the treatment. There is only some bleeding after a Hijama session, and you can be active again soon. Should you give more blood during a session, you should rest for the remainder of the day. After treatment  you should enjoy fresh vegetables and fruit, drink plenty of water, herbal teas (such as Nettle tea and Peppermint) and fresh juices that nourish, delight and replenish you.

Ideal Days of the Month for Hijama
We can observe the power of the moon in plants, animals and natural events and we can also observe it in ourselves. The tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. The water of the seas is slightly lifted due to the gravity of the moon while the Earth underneath the seas keeps on rotating. The Moon is indeed so powerful, some scientist propose that the tidal effect of the Moon may have helped trigger the convection on the Earth that led to the multi-plate tectonics. What has been also established is that the moon is directly responsible for life on Earth and acts as the Earth’s protector taking thousands of hits from asteroids who would have otherwise hit our planet.

The moon is of great importance in Islamic science, alchemy and esoterical studies and this dedication to the study of the moon speaks of the remarkable wisdom in the Islamic healing arts that have always worked to integrate the material with the esoterical and the subtle realms (that which is unseen, such as the Psyche). This is a truly holistic approach to life and all existence.

The best days for Hijama appear to be the seventeenth day until the twenty-seventh day of the lunar month (day seven-teen to twenty-seven after last the full-moon). I want to study this further in my practise and may make amends to this statement.

During the first days of the lunar month, i.e. from the first day until of the fifteenth day, blood-flow and blood re-newal is stimulated.

In the middle of the lunar days (12-13-14-15), the strong pull of the moon continues to stimulate the blood, and through Hijama the body would loose much of its young blood cells which is counter-productive to the aim of the Hijama treatment, which is to clean the body of old tissue and stimulate blood renewal.

A Guide to Hijama

/in , /by

hijamaMany confuse Hijama to be the same as popular wet cupping (or dry cupping in it’s alternative blood less application) or even the same as leeching. However, Hijama is it’s own unique medicinal technique that cures  patients of many ailments including psychic illness (depression aso.), chronic headaches, poisoning and asthma to name just a few applications.

Hijama (or Al Hijamah) is a traditional Arabic form of wet cupping treatment that is part of the prophetic medicine heritage of Mohammed (a.s). The word “Hijama” is derived from the Arabic verbs “Hajama” and “Haj’jama” which means “to minimize” or “to restore to basic size”, or “to diminish in volume”. In Arabic they say, “A certain person diminished the problem”, they meant that he returned the problem to its original size. There is also a verb “ahjama” which means “to withdraw or retreat from attack”. Hijama is seen as one of the major pillars of prophetic medicine.

The quest for the true “Tib Nabawi”, aka Prophetic Medicine has established an entire literary genre of writings based on either Sunni and Shi’a Hadith by Sunni and Shi’a scholar respectively. The “Prophetic Medicine” (in Arabic: Tib Nabawi) is the title of 25 different books written by different Muslim scholars between the 9th and 18th century (Western calendar) who describe remedies ascribed to traditional prophetic medicine.  The original teachings about Hijama as established by the Prophet (a.s) were gradually obliterated and lost over time. What can be found on Hijama on the internet is almost all derived from Sunni sources.

One of the major differences of Hijama to simple wet cupping as it is popularly practiced in the West is in the cutting technique itself. In popular wet cupping as practiced in the West, China aso., the skin is punctured with a  surgical needle rather deeply (0,3 – 0,9 mm) while in Hijama the skin is only scratched. A small fold of skin is carefully pinched between thumb and index fingers of the left hand, while the right hand “scarifies” the skin fold with few small superficial scarifications (about 0,.1 mm in depth) just to open the skin barrier of the epidermis. Specific care is taken not to include any anatomical structure (nerve or a superficial vein). Scarifications must be always superficial not deep, sequential not simultaneous, few not many, vertical not transverse, longitudinal not pin-point, short (about 2 mm) not long, and gently slow not rapidly done.

Hijama is applied at skin sites directly overlying the affected areas of the body, which is expected to give better local clearance of interstitial fluids and improvement of pathology than practicing Hijama at distant anatomical sites (as some practitioners of wet cupping do, relating to theories of the Meridians).

Before the actual cutting the areas of skin are prepared with a heated glass cup or cups with rubber bulps. After sterilizing the skin region very well, the practitioner holds one cup in his right hand and the other hand holds a small conical paper and lights it from the candle. When the piece of paper burns well s/he inserts it quickly inside the cup, and fixes the cup quickly and lightly on the skin of the patient. Alternatively the cup is reheated with a gas flame devise. The heated cup will create a suction on the skin and the practitioner must wait for 2-3 minutes letting the cup fix themselves on the person. After the elapse of 2 – 3 minutes, the practitioner repeats removing the cup(s) and fixes them again in the same fashion. These repetitions are made at least twice and attention must be paid not to let the suction effect weaken. A similar effect of creating a vaccum on the skin is achieved with rubber bulps that create suction. New silicion glass bulps are by now on the market that also promise to reduce the bruising that may result from the suction of the skin.

Finally, a sterilized blade is taken and the practitioner disinfects the skin again with antiseptics or with sterilizing spray, and holds the angle of the blade in his hand, between the thumb and the forefinger, and carefully and superficially slits the prepared skin in superficial slashes 0.5 – 1 cm apart from each other. S/he cuts few slashes up and down mentioning the name of God (Dhikrs).

When the practitioner finishes the slight slashes, he fixes the cup on it slightly and quickly. Then the cup starts sucking the spoiled blood.

The quantity of spoiled blood which is extracted for the first time by means of Hijama amounts to 100 – 200 ml. Any cup should never be filled more then 8 times and special attention needs to be paid to the constitution of a patient and the specific illness that is treated with Hijama.