PART 1: Hijama Discussion on Let's Talk Programme on Huda TV

The following video is a Hijama Discussion on the Let's Talk Programme on Huda TV (http://www.huda.tv) which was first aired on Wednesday 5th January, 2011 at 18:00 GMT.

Featured on the programme are the founding members of the International Cupping Society:

Dr Tamer Shaban from University of Cairo, author of "The Complete Guide to Cupping Therapy" and Dr Munir Ravalia, Chairperson of the International Cupping Society

For those people who may have missed the programme, we are reproducing below the Youtube version with the permission of the owner.



TOTAL VIEWING TIME: 50 MINUTES APPROX.

BELOW IS THE FIRST PART OF THE INTERVIEW WITH A ROUGH TRANSCRIPT UNDERNEATH (REMAINING PARTS TO BE POSTED SHORTLY AS AND WHEN THEY ARE READY):



TOPICS DISCUSSED

TIME: 00:41
DEFINITION OF WET-CUPPING:
Difference between Wet-cupping and Dry-cupping: Wet-cupping (Hijama) involves extraction or removal of blood from the body.

Reason for wet-cupping: Certain stagnation areas in the body where blood collects in and it has been shown from medical studies, that removal of this blood is beneficial for the whole body.

Similar to servicing our cars every year: oil-change the mechanic will drain the old oil and replenish with fresh oil. This new oil will make the car work better and more efficiently. Same with the body, by removing this old so-called 'bad' blood, the body has to reproduce fresh blood. 70% of diseases come from within the blood. So you are actually removing the old and replenishing with the new, it's a very good way for the body to keep itself in check, and detoxifying itself, and also for specific medical ailments it is utilised, for example people who suffer from chronic conditions it's very very beneficial over and above the medications that we are used to taking throughout the world, not only in the west, we are addicted somewhat to medications.

TIME: 02:30
What is involved, and what kind of instruments do you use for cupping?
Obviously we wish to promote this as a very safe practice.
Some people may have seen on Youtube, blood squirting out everywhere, and dirty cups.
We use sterile equipment and all our equipment should be disposable to safeguard the patient. Especially in Islamic Medicine, there is no point a physician or a doctor trying to do some medical treatment, but also harming the patient at the same time.
But also by using sterile and disposable equipment, it also safeguards the practitioner.

TIME: 03:15
How does it work and is there any research on the topic of 'bad' blood for example?
There are more and more studies coming about and later on Dr Tamer, who is a specialist in hijama, will be going through very specific clinical details, he has done a thesis in respiratory medicine for children, on how the cupping actually medically produces benefits for the patients

TIME: 03:50
Are there any complications from cupping, and are there any problems that can be raised from cupping?
If you look at the procedure, there may be some short-term but not necessarily complications, but certain places on the body for treatment, for example on the face is very good for for ocular problems (eye problems), or on the head, this will leave
some bruising for a certian period of time, so obviously the patient needs to be aware of this, because they may be going to work the next day, and people there may not appreciate what this is.

TIME: 04:20
How long is this bruising for? I have seen some pictures while I was searching for cupping, there seems to be some round circles, what is that?
This happens when you are drawing the blood to the surface of the skin, you get a local congestion, different skin types and colour of the persons skin will affect the type of the bruising, but it is not really a complication - it's a period of time that the patient will experience this, but eventually this (bruising) will fade away.

TIME: 04:54
You mentioned earlier fire cupping, the Chinese also use different kinds of herbs and there is dry cupping, what are the different types of cupping and I guess the Islamic version, hijama, is only wet-cupping.
Yes that's correct, traditionally the Chinese would use, the method of creating the vacuum, the cup is placed on the specific point of the body you are treating, and the fire was traditionally used to create the suction / vacuum, so that would be known as fire-cupping. But these days it's very simple, we have a hand-pump that creates the vacuum so maybe some of the dangers that may arise with the fire-cupping are removed.
There is some benefit though in using the fire-cupping, because the heat causes something called vasodilation, it actually draws more blood to the area, so there is benefits with different techniques, and as you mentioned, the Prophet (SAW), he utilised the wet-cupping, and in the hadith that talks about this in Sahih Bukhari, it talks about benefit from 3 things: the gulp of the honey, the incision of the cupper, and from cauterisation, but he also mentions at the end of the hadith that it (cauterisation) is forbidden.

TIME: 06:20
Some would say the prophet lived a few thousand years ago, that was sort of antiquated medicine, what is your view on that?
As we know the Prophet (SAW) was "rahmatulil alameen", a mercy onto mankind. So this was from the time that he was around, until the end of time. So people who say that, I can understand they're thinking maybe in the old days they are using these old techniques and there is no evidence for it. But this is something we are actively doing within our society, is to have a programme whereby specific medical studies are conducted to show the benefit from this, and as I say, the reason hijama works so well, is that there is a technique and a method which allows the body to heal itself, rather than using other things like drugs, which as we know have side effects. For example even a paracetamol, something very simple, very cheap to use, you can take a few paracetamol to get rid of your headache, but these things have side effects, and even something like a paracetamol, takes one week to cleanse from the whole body system. These are some of the specific reasons why we are promoting and trying to revive the sunnah.

But also you said hijama has temporary bruising, so is the damage from painkillers temporary or long-lasting?
Long-lasting. If you actually look at the pharmaceutical companies, they even create diseases, so there is a drug for it. Because they spend billions on drugs, so if they have spent X billion on a drug but there is no disease for it to cure, then they create these things, which is unbeneficial to the whole of society.

END OF SEGMENT

FEATURED HIJAMA THERAPISTS:
Dr Munir Ravalia, Chairperson of the International Cupping Society
Dr Tamer Shaban from University of Cairo, author of "The Complete Guide to Cupping Therapy" and co-founder of the International Cupping Society


CONTACT DETAILS:
Website: http://www.internationalcuppingsociety.com

Our thanks to Dr Munir Ravalia for sharing the above post. If you have any questions for him, or if you have a patient of his and want to leave him a testimonial, then please leave a comment* below.

If you are a hijama therapist or patient and are happy to share your knowledge or experience via a guest blog-post like the one above, please send me an email to: hijama.mail@gmail.com.

*Comments are moderated to prevent spamming so may take some time to appear

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