Waleed Basyouni – Breast Cancer Awareness Month – Ask The

As-salamu alaykum, Shaykh.

Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullah.

I see that you're wearing a pink shirt.

Yes.

And it is October, and we know that

it's breast cancer month.

Awareness month, yes.

Awareness month.

So the thing is, a lot of sisters

may have questions about mammograms.

And knowing that the alarming fact is that

one out of eight women in the U

.S. may be at risk of having the

disease.

So what do you give in terms of

advice and what they need to do, and

any Islamic restrictions on that?

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, as-salamu alaykum, Rasulullah.

Obviously, I'm not a physician to give them

advice related to, from a medical perspective.

But what I know that breast cancer is,

first of all, there is a myth that

breast cancer is only to women.

But that's not true.

It can also affect men, yes, percentage, way,

way more or less.

But in women, it is more very common,

comparing to men, or more common comparing to

men.

Like what you said, one out of eight

women in the U.S., you know, have

the risk of developing breast cancer.

A lot of this to do with genetics

and family history as well.

And I want to say that we should

take that serious, because alhamdulillah, breast cancers, if

you can detect that early, you know, it's

something that you can treat, and the survival

rate can be higher, versus if you detect

it later on and it's spread, you know,

over the body.

And I know people from my own family

lost their life for breast cancer, you know.

And I know what that feels, and, you

know, some of them I didn't witness, like

I was very young, like my grandmother, rahimahullah.

But I know that was very painful.

My mom, I remember telling me about how

her mom suffered a lot, especially she lived

in a place and a time, you know,

they don't have what we have today at

that time.

One of the blessings of Allah subhanahu wa

ta'ala that He have given us this

ability to detect this kind of disease, to

treat it, and we're grateful and thankful to

Allah for that.

And this warning month is something that we

should remind one another of it, and remind

of being healthy, you know, staying away from

things that most likely cause cancer, you know,

smoking, alcohol, things of that nature, unhealthy lifestyles,

food and not exercising and so forth.

Memogram is something that proven to be scientifically

helped to detect the cancer and help a

lot to reduce the risk of, you know,

catching it later on later stage.

It's not everything, but it's done, it's done

correctly professionally.

And many people think that they can do

it to themselves.

But I asked many doctors said, yes, you

can do, but you need a professional person

to do that as well.

That's why mammogram screening is something maybe like

the physical one for a woman by her

hand that she said, oh, I don't want

somebody to touch my breast or anything of

that, especially if she's still a little bit

young.

We know that they recommended an age of

40, different age.

I'm not up to date what's the age

requirement right now, but I know that it

is different from one person to another based

on family history.

But discuss this with your physician.

But the point here, Islamically, yes, you're allowed

to do a mammogram test or screening and

for a sister should be handled by another

woman.

That's normally the case.

It's normally the case.

And if in a case where random place

or like no one, you couldn't find anybody

except a man to do that, if it's

done for professional reasons, it's a man is

allowed to touch a woman or a woman

touch a man for medical reasons.

But in this area, just as necessary, yeah,

case of necessity.

And it is part of necessity to screen.

But only if there is no other options,

if you couldn't find someone else, a female

to do that to you.

Later on, when she go to surgery, let's

say there is a surgery to be done

in the breast, it has to be a

male, maybe two or maybe she couldn't find

a female surgeon to do that.

That will be allowed.

They may not even have the choice.

Yeah.

Depending on the hospital, it will be allowed

to use the best surgeon.

Basically, in some places I heard even a

husband will be so jealous and will say,

no, you can't do let other woman even

to screen you or anything like that.

There's no sexual, you know, feeling attached to

these kind of things.

It's done professionally.

It's done to to detect the disease.

It's there is a lot of ethic guidelines

govern this area, especially in many developed world

today.

So the answer, short answer, yes, it is

a good thing to do to create awareness

about it.

You know, I hate to see a young

woman dying because of this or suffering because

of this.

May Allah protect all our sisters and brothers

from cancers and heal those who are suffering

from them and help us to find cure

to all type of cancers, because I had

my share of cancers with one of my

children.

And I know how suffering this can be.

And Alhamdulillah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala heal

them.

But I've seen with my eyes, kids didn't

make it.

People make it with a long term disability

or like permanent disabilities.

It's really taxing on the family.

May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect all

of us and heal those who are suffering

and make it easy for those who are

going through my treatment.

Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.