Ruling 2645

It is unlawful to eat mud. The same applies to soil and sand, based on obligatory precaution. If one is compelled to, there is no problem in eating Daghistani or Armenian mud, or other mud, for medical treatment. It is permitted (jāʾiz) to eat a little – i.e. up to the size of an average chickpea – of the turbah ¹of His Eminence Sayyid al-Shuhadāʾ [Imam al-Ḥusayn] (ʿA) for medicinal purposes. If the turbah is not taken from the sacred grave itself or from around it, then even if it can be called ‘turbah of Imam al-Ḥusayn (ʿA)’, based on obligatory precaution, it must be dissolved in some water and suchlike until it becomes diluted and then drunk. Similarly, this precaution (iḥtiyāṭ) must be observed when one does not have confidence (iṭmiʾnān) that the turbah is from the sacred grave of His Eminence and there is no proof to verify it.

¹ A turbah is a piece of earth or clay on which one places his forehead when prostrating.