By: Farah Shaikh
Today whole world is dangerously suffering from a viral disease COVID -19. A calculation is alarming that more than 5% of the world population will vanish if no vaccine or solution is found within time.
Can the Magic black seed /kalonji kill or cure Covid-19, or can really these seeds cure the symptoms of Covid-19 and help today’s world to some aspect? Before we dig into this topic, we should know some basic knowledge of viruses and its mechanism of action/working.
The viruses are a type of microorganisms that do not have the ability to replicate and act as an infectious agent and contagious outside the body of the host, thus it must require a host (human, animal, plant or living organism) to replicate and cause infection by using host’s cell machinery. Same is the case of Covid-19, a deadly ghost virus which originated from the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province of China in early December 2019. This life-threatening virus has different stages of symptoms,early-stage shows flu-like signs, fever, cough sneezing but severe stage leads to pneumonia, shortness of breath, chest congestion with severe pain and may lead to death, unfortunately.
Whenever an infectious agent just like Covid-19 enter our body, our body’s immune system goes through several stages of defence against the agent like a commando to maintain the normal functioning of body for the survival without damage, but as we know this Covid-19 appeared to be a strong virus, therefore people with less immunity (immunosuppressive) cannot resist and has a higher risk of mortal, so it’s important for us to keep our immune system stronger and alert.
The other thing that we do not have against this virus is a treatment in the form of either any medicine or vaccine because of the fact that this virus has a high mutation rate which means it is changing its structure frequently with the passage of time.
Therefore we are seeking protection for curing the symptoms caused by Covid-19, which should somehow help to fight against it.
Therefore I came up to the suggestion that Kalonji the magic black seeds should be used for curing the symptoms.
Black seeds / black cumin seeds or ‘kalonji’ in Urdu has a vast number of medicinal properties and its scientific name is Nigella sativa used for manufacturing many medicines.
The black seeds are used to treat many ailments such as digestive tract conditions (diarrhoea, dysentery, colic, constipation, haemorrhoids), it is an anti-diabetic and has anti-cancer properties, it reduces pain but especially the most important facts are that it helps treat respiratory conditions such as (asthma, allergies, emphysema, flu, congestion, bronchitis, cough) and it also regulates the immune system and has anti-inflammatory properties and it also kills microorganisms.
Therefore no doubt we should use black seeds to cure the symptoms of Covid-19 patients.
Black seeds oil can be mix with water and inhaled as steam by patients, this type of treatment is known as aromatherapy which is a pseudoscience and has a historical background from the ancient civilization of Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks and Indians or black seeds tea can be taken to treat mild symptoms. For severe condition, pharmaceutical scientist can derive any way of using black seeds as medicine for COVID-19.
The medicinal properties of black seeds are certified by The Messenger of ALLAH (SAW) as he said:
“There is healing in black cumin seeds for all diseases except death.”
(SAHIH al-BUKHARI 5688)
Therefore as a Muslim nation we should at least try to use black seeds to cure this deadly ghost virus Covid-19. I am sure we will come up with beneficial result to fight against Covid-19 with black cumin seeds.
The writer is a student of Medical Laboratory Sciences, University of Lahore Islamabad campus. She can be reached at [email protected]