The Disease and The Cure By Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim

The Disease and the Cure (al-Da' wa al-Dawa') is among the works Imam Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah is best known for — a sustained treatment of the human heart, sin, and spiritual healing.

Note: this page is for the physical book. There is no authorized free PDF edition of this work available online — if you have found one, it is an unauthorized copy. The official English edition published by Hikmah Publications is available here in print.

What This Book Is About

A Letter About Sin — And Its Cure

The book was written in response to a real letter Ibn al-Qayyim received from a man confessing his struggle with a persistent spiritual illness — a sin he could not break free from. Rather than simply advising the man to repent and try harder, Ibn al-Qayyim wrote what became a comprehensive treatise on sin itself: what it is, how it affects the heart and soul, what makes it so difficult to leave, and what Allah has placed in the Qur'an and Sunnah as the cure.

The Root Cause of All Sin

Ibn al-Qayyim's central diagnosis is that sin does not begin with the limbs — it begins with the heart, specifically with a deficiency in one's knowledge of Allah and one's love for Him. When a person truly knows Allah — His majesty, His generosity, His awareness of every act — the pull of sin weakens. When that knowledge is absent or weak, sin fills the vacuum. The cure, then, is not merely willpower but knowledge: deeper, more sustained, more personal knowledge of Allah.

The Role of Du'a — And Why It Is Sometimes Delayed

One of the most important sections of the book deals with supplication — why du'a is delayed, what conditions must be met for it to be effective, and what prevents it from being answered. This section alone has benefited countless readers who have struggled to understand why they make du'a and feel unheard. Ibn al-Qayyim answers with precision, compassion, and deep grounding in the Qur'an and hadith.

A Warning About the Gravest Sins

The book includes detailed treatment of the most destructive spiritual diseases — shirk, the major sins, zina, and what Ibn al-Qayyim calls the greatest sickness of the heart: following one's desires in opposition to what Allah loves. These chapters are sobering, honest, and written with the urgency of a scholar who understood the weight of what he was addressing.

About the Author

Imam Shams al-Din Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (691–751 AH) studied under Ibn Taymiyyah in Damascus and remained with him until his teacher's death. He wrote extensively on the diseases of the soul, the stations of worship, and the inner dimensions of Islamic practice. This translation is published by Hikmah Publications.

Who This Book Is For

Every Muslim struggling with a recurring sin they cannot seem to leave. Every student of knowledge who wants to understand sin, tawbah, and du'a from a classical treatment. Every believer whose heart feels distant from Allah and who wants a rigorous, Qur'an-grounded prescription for what ails it.

Continue Reading

The same work is also carried here in a second English translation, from a different publisher, as The Remedy for Those Victimized by Sins — both are ad-Da' wa ad-Dawa'. We wrote about the book at length in The Disease and the Cure — a prescription for the ailing heart, and published a passage on speaking about Allah without knowledge from the same work, quoted there from the IIPH translation. Browse more by Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, see our guide to the best books on purifying the soul (tazkiyah), or continue through the author with Books by Ibn al-Qayyim: where to start.