A QUICK NOTE ON THE CORRECT UNDERSTANDING OF ADWA (عدوى)

1/ This is the wording of the hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari:

لا عدوى ولا طيرة ولا هامة ولا صفر وفر من المجذوم كما تفر من الأسد

2/ "There is no adwa, no bad omen (tiyara), no haamah, and no safar. And flee from the leper as you would flee from a lion."

3/ The Jahili Arabs believed in disease spreading as an independent agent that was not subject to the will of Allah. They may have had specific superstitious beliefs in that regard as is common with pagan mythologies. This belief is being negated, not the concept of contagion.

4/ This is supported by the fact that this is mentioned in a hadith along with other Jahili superstitions, such as their belief that the month of Safar is a time of bad luck.

5/ They also believed that owls are an omen of death, or as some reports suggest, they believed that the soul of a person wrongly killed turned into an owl that would cry out for blood till it had been avenged.

6/ When the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said, لا هامة ولا صفر, he did not mean there is no such thing as owls and no month called Safar. He was negating the jahili superstitions concerning these things.

7/ This is further supported by the fact that the hadith ends with the advice "Flee from a leper like you would flee from a lion." Contagious disease can pass from one person to another, but not independent of Allah's will.

8/ ADDENDUM

9/ Contagion via viruses is medically established fact. There is no grounds left to hold on to the classical interpretation (one of various interpretations) that لا عدوى means disease is not contagious.

9/ You might as well claim it is shirk to duck if someone shoots at you, because bullets don't cause death, Allah does.

For those interested in a treatment of this topic more detailed than the tweetment in this thread: