عدوی

العَدْوَى

Linguistically, adwa is a sickness passing from its owner to another; as a technical term it is the same idea ¹. Most scholars hold that disease does not pass by its own nature but by God's act and decree, and they reconcile the hadith 'no contagion' with the hadith 'the diseased should not be brought to the healthy' ^{1 2}. Umar and a group of early scholars deny contagion; another group affirms it, citing the hadith about a leper of the Thaqif delegation and the hadith 'flee from the leper' ^{2 3}. Fear of contagion is not forbidden so long as it does not prevent an obligatory act; but entering a land stricken by plague is forbidden by the text ².