The handling of kohl by Western medicine is a good case study in the politicization of medicine and science. A number of studies published in Europe and North America warn about the dangers of traditional kohl eyeliners, saying that they contain toxic substances. It’s also common for medical professionals in these countries to advise their patients against using them.

Using kohl is a confirmed sunnah, so this is actually a very serious issue.

The Prophet ﷺ said “The best of your kohl is ithmid, for it makes the vision clear and makes the hair grow.” [al-Silsilah al-Saheehah, 633]

If the kuffar can convince the Muslims that kohl is toxic, it means convincing them to believe that the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ is
harmful. If we break down their arguments, however, the truth of Islam and the falsehood of their scientific methods becomes apparent.

The strongest opinion is that the ithmid kohl explicitly recommended by the Prophet ﷺ is the mineral galena, a naturally occurring lead ore. It has a number of well documented health benefits, including stimulating the production of nitric oxide in the eyes, which has antitumor, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory properties, is a vasodilator, and decreases inter-ocular pressure. These properties mean it is effective in fighting a number of eye conditions, including glaucoma and macular degeneration, as well as promoting general eye health.

Western researchers themselves have documented many of these properties, so they can’t deny them, but they still want to attack Islam and secure their monopoly on medical treatments, so they claim that the use of ithmid kohl can cause lead poisoning.

There are some cases of lead poisoning caused by kohl preparations, but most of these cases were in India, and caused by kohl made from substances other than ithmid. There are no documented cases of such negative effects when using the ithmid kohl prescribed by the Prophet ﷺ.

However, one widely circulated study in the US claims to link unsafe blood lead levels to the use of Ithmid kohl (galena). A healthy Nigerian boy was brought to a doctor, who noticed the boy was wearing kohl. The doctor measured the boy’s blood lead levels and conducted a lab analysis of the kohl. The kohl was made from galena, and the boy’s blood lead levels were well above the levels determined by health authorities to be safe.


The doctor instructed the parents to cease use of the kohl, which they did, and then tested the boy’s blood some time later. After stopping the use of kohl, the lead levels went back below the safe threshold. Western medicine had saved the day and freed the Africans from their superstitious, backward, and dangerous medical traditions! Or at least the study tried to make it seem that way.


This study was published by the US Center for Disease Control, and was even used in communications with Nigerian public health
agencies to promote an anti-kohl campaign in Nigeria. There’s some serious problems with the study, however, and apparently no one gave it much critical attention.


Ithmid (galena), unlike metallic lead, is harmless in the human body because it is completely insoluble. Ithmid’s chemical name is lead sulfide, meaning the lead is bonded with sulfur. Much of the Western literature on ithmid uses deceptive wording, saying that it “contains lead, a toxic metal.”

If we use this logic we could say that water, H2O, is dangerous because it contains hydrogen, which is explosive on its own. We could also say that Sodium Chloride (NaCl) commonly known as salt, is dangerous, since both sodium and chlorine can be deadly to eat on their own. Lead poisoning occurs when free lead particles bond with hemoglobin in the blood, but this doesn’t happen with lead sulfide, which instead passes safely through the body. So why did the Nigerian boy have elevated blood lead levels after using ithmid? Because the method used to test his blood lead levels was graphite furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy.


In order to conduct a chemical analysis, this method heats a sample to around 3000° C to vaporize it. This frees the atoms in the sample, making them light absorbent. The light patterns can then be used to identify which atoms are present in the sample.


As it happens, if ithmid is exposed to temperatures of around 800° to 1100° C, it breaks the bonds between the sulfur and lead. This is actually the process how metallic lead is extracted from lead sulfide (galena) ore in furnaces. This means that someone with safe, nonsoluble ithmid in their circulatory system would appear to have elevated blood lead levels in a graphite furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy test.


Some try to argue that although ithmid may be non-soluble, if children ingest it, the stomach acids can break down the bonds between the sulfur and lead, freeing the lead and making it bioavailable. However, what actually happens when lead sulfide comes into contact with hydrochloric acid (stomach acids) is that a small percentage of the lead sulfide will break down, but the lead will bond to the chlorine in the hydrochloric acids instead, forming lead chloride, which is also effectively non-soluble. So even if children accidentally swallow ithmid, there is still no risk of lead poisoning.


Unfortunately some Muslims went down the proverbial lizard hole and performed similar tests. In Saudi Arabia, researchers tested a number of kohl users by the same method, and also found “unsafe” blood lead levels. As a result, Saudi authorities began to issue warnings about lead content in traditional ithmid kohl preparations.

This is nothing short of a war against the sunnah based on blatantly flawed assumptions and a totally uncritical attitude towards data which supports certain politicized views. Of course, the awliya of Satan also have clear interests here; undermining trust in traditional health promoting products weakens people’s immune systems, making them more reliant on Western medicine, and boosting the profits of the kuffar and their medical-industrial-academic complex. Furthermore, weakening confidence in traditional medicine and pushing people instead to rely on Western medicine also increases the power and prestige of the political structures backing and backed by the medical establishment.


A very small amount of analysis can dismantle this entire propaganda campaign, but because these are supposed ‘experts,’ people treat them as if they are infallible, and ithmid kohl use has dropped dramatically over the past few decades among the Muslims as a result of these campaigns. This is why it’s of the utmost importance to remember the Allah’s command:

یَـٰۤأَیُّهَا ٱلَّذِینَ ءَامَنُوۤا۟ إِن جَاۤءَكُمۡ فَاسِقُۢ بِنَبَإࣲ فَتَبَیَّنُوۤا۟ أَن تُصِیبُوا۟ قَوۡمَۢا بِجَهَـٰلَةࣲ فَتُصۡبِحُوا۟ عَلَىٰ مَا فَعَلۡتُمۡ نَـٰدِمِینَ

“O you who have believed, if there comes to you a disobedient one with information, investigate, lest you harm a people out of ignorance and become, over what you have done, regretful.”

Don’t be fooled by the veneer of objectivity and neutrality projected by the kuffar. Science can be used as a tool for deception, just as much as it can be used as tool for investigating reality, so we should always assume that kuffar are lying until trustworthy and righteous Muslims verify any information.