Allahumma inni A’udhu Bika Minal Barasi: Meaning, Arabic & Hadith

Allahumma inni a’udhu bika minal baras wal junun wal judham wa min sayyi’il asqam is a short prophetic supplication asking Allah for protection from four specific afflictions: leucoderma, insanity, leprosy, and any severe disease beyond those. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ used to recite it as part of his routine seeking of refuge. It is recorded in Sunan Abi Dawud 1554, narrated by Anas ibn Malik (raḍiya Allahu ‘anhu), and graded Sahih by both Shaykh al-Albani and Shaykh Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut.

The dua is unusually specific. Out of every illness a human being can face, the Prophet ﷺ named these four — three of them chronic, disfiguring, isolating conditions, and the fourth a generalising catch-all for any disease of the same severity. This page walks through the exact wording with full Arabic and transliteration, the linguistic distinction between baras and judham that most translations conflate, the hadith chain and authentication, the classical commentary on why these four conditions were singled out, and the practical times the Sunnah places this supplication in your day.

What “Allahumma inni a’udhu bika minal baras” Means

The English meaning of Allahumma inni a’udhu bika minal baras wal junun wal judham wa min sayyi’il asqam is: O Allah, I seek refuge in You from leucoderma, from insanity, from leprosy, and from evil diseases. The Prophet ﷺ opened with the standard isti’adha formula — a’udhu bika, “I take refuge in You” — and then named three specific diseases by their classical Arabic medical terms before closing with a generalising clause covering any severe affliction not already listed.

Read literally, this is a dua about disease. Read in context, it is a dua about a particular kind of disease. The three named conditions — baras, junun, and judham — share a common profile in the medical landscape of the seventh century: they were chronic, visually or behaviourally disfiguring, and socially isolating. They were the conditions a person could not hide and could not easily recover from. The fourth term, sayyi’il asqam, then extends the supplication to any disease of comparable gravity — what classical scholars treated as a deliberate generalisation by the Prophet ﷺ so that the dua would not be confined to the diseases known in his own time.

This is also a dua that explicitly does not ask for protection from all illness. The Prophet ﷺ did not seek refuge from fevers, colds, headaches, or other common ailments — because, as classical scholars including al-Khattabi noted, those illnesses are visited on the believer briefly and produce reward through patience. The diseases named here are different: they are persistent, they isolate the sufferer from family and society, and they can erode rida with the decree if borne for years on end. The dua singles them out precisely for that reason.

Full Arabic, Diacritical and Plain, with Transliteration

The supplication is one sentence. The fully diacritical form, as transmitted in Sunan Abi Dawud, reads:

اَللّٰهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوْذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْبَرَصِ، وَالْجُنُوْنِ، وَالْجُذَامِ، وَمِنْ سَيِّئِ الْأَسْقَامِ

The same supplication without diacritical marks, in the form most commonly typed online and printed in modern adhkar booklets:

اللهم إني أعوذ بك من البرص، والجنون، والجذام، ومن سيئ الأسقام

English transliteration:

Allahumma inni a’udhu bika minal-baras, wal-junun, wal-judham, wa min sayyi’il-asqam.

You will encounter several different romanisations of the same Arabic in different adhkar booklets — a’udhu, a’uzu, and auzu for أَعُوْذُ; junun, jununi, and junooni for الْجُنُوْنِ; judham or juzam for الْجُذَامِ. All of these are transliteration choices for the same Arabic letters. The differences are orthographic, not linguistic. The version above uses the a’udhu / judham / sayyi’ spelling that aligns most closely with academic standards, but the form printed in your local mosque’s azkar handout is equally valid as long as the underlying Arabic is correct.

For pronunciation, the following short video walks through the wording syllable by syllable so the reciter can match the Arabic letter-by-letter rather than guessing from the transliteration alone:

Word-by-Word Arabic Breakdown

The full sentence is short, but each Arabic term in it carries weight that the English usually flattens. Here is what every word means and where its root sits in the classical lexicon:

• اللَّهُمَّ (Allahumma) — “O Allah.” The vocative form reserved for calling on Allah; the particle ya is folded into the divine name and replaced by the doubled mim at the end.
• إِنِّي (inni) — “indeed I.” The particle inna with the first-person pronoun attached, used to emphasise the speaker.
• أَعُوذُ بِكَ (a’udhu bika) — “I seek refuge in You.” The verb a’udhu comes from the root ع-و-ذ, the same root as isti’adha (the formula a’udhu billahi min ash-shaytan ar-rajim). It means to flee toward shelter, not merely to wish for safety.
• مِنَ الْبَرَصِ (minal-baras) — “from al-baras.” In classical Arabic medical terminology, baras means leucoderma or vitiligo — the loss of skin pigmentation producing white patches. The same word appears in Surah Aal Imran 3:49 and Surah al-Ma’idah 5:110 in the context of the diseases Prophet Isa (peace be upon him) was given the ability to cure by Allah’s permission.
• وَالْجُنُونِ (wal-junun) — “and from al-junun.” From the root ج-ن-ن, meaning to cover or conceal — the same root as the word jinn. Junun denotes loss of reason: the covering of the intellect. It encompasses what we today call severe mental illness, including conditions affecting cognition and behaviour.
• وَالْجُذَامِ (wal-judham) — “and from al-judham.” From the root ج-ذ-م, meaning to cut off or amputate. Judham is the classical Arabic term for leprosy in its proper medical sense — Hansen’s disease — named for the way it leads to the loss of digits and extremities. This is the actual “leprosy” of the dua. Baras is not.
• وَمِنْ سَيِّئِ الْأَسْقَامِ (wa min sayyi’il-asqam) — “and from evil diseases.” Sayyi’ means “evil” or “severe”; asqam is the plural of saqam, a chronic and grievous illness (as distinct from a passing one). Classical commentary on this phrase — particularly by al-Tibi — reads it as a deliberate generalisation: the Prophet ﷺ extended the dua beyond the three named conditions to cover any disease of comparable severity, whether or not it existed in his time.

Read in this granular way, the sentence is not simply “protect me from bad illness.” It is a structured petition: three named afflictions with specific medical and linguistic content, followed by an open clause covering whatever else falls into the same severity bracket.

What Baras, Junun, and Judham Really Mean

The single most common confusion in English translations of this dua is treating baras and judham as synonyms — both translated as “leprosy,” sometimes with one rendered “leprosy” and the other “elephantiasis” as if these were minor variants. They are not. In classical Arabic, and in the way the Prophet ﷺ named them, they are two distinct conditions with two different root verbs.

Baras (الْبَرَص) is what modern medicine calls leucoderma or vitiligo. It is a pigmentation disorder: melanin-producing cells stop functioning in patches of skin, leaving white spots that spread over time. Baras does not amputate, does not produce nerve damage, and is not contagious in the way judham was understood to be. It is, however, highly visible, often progressive, and in the pre-modern world it carried a heavy social stigma. The same Arabic word is the one used in the Quranic verses about Isa (peace be upon him), where Allah grants him the ability to cure “the blind and the leper” — al-akmaha wal-abras — and the classical mufassirun uniformly understood the latter to refer to vitiligo, not Hansen’s disease.

Judham (الْجُذَام) is leprosy in the proper medical sense — what is now called Hansen’s disease, caused by infection with Mycobacterium leprae. Its Arabic root ج-ذ-م means to cut off, and the name reflects the way the disease progressively damages peripheral nerves and leads to the loss of digits, the collapse of facial features, and amputation. Judham was understood in classical Islamic medical literature as contagious and chronic, and the Prophet ﷺ himself counselled keeping a measured distance from someone afflicted with it (“flee from the leper as you would flee from a lion,” Sahih al-Bukhari 5707) — guidance now read as an early recognition of infection control.

Junun (الْجُنُون) refers to the loss of ‘aql — the rational faculty. In classical Arabic medicine and jurisprudence, junun covers a spectrum from severe psychotic conditions to states that today we would describe under categories such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder in acute phases, and other conditions that compromise a person’s ability to reason consistently. The Prophet ﷺ naming junun alongside physical diseases is significant for mental health: it places severe mental illness squarely inside the category of legitimate human suffering that warrants supplication for protection, not stigma. The dua treats the mind and the body alike.

Why the Prophet ﷺ Named These Four Conditions

Classical commentary on this dua is preserved most clearly in the writings of Imam al-Tibi (al-Teebi), the eighth-century commentator on Mishkat al-Masabih. His reading is the standard answer to the obvious question: why these four, out of every disease known to humanity?

His answer turns on a distinction. Most everyday illnesses — fevers, headaches, ophthalmia, the running of the bowels — are short and surmountable. The believer endures them and, by the well-attested hadith principle that “no Muslim is afflicted with hardship, sickness, or sorrow except that Allah expiates some of his sins by it” (Sahih al-Bukhari 5641, Sahih Muslim 2573), draws closer to Allah through patience. Seeking refuge from those passing afflictions would in some sense be seeking refuge from the very experience that earns the reward.

The conditions named in this dua are different. They share three properties:

• They are chronic. Baras, junun, and judham do not resolve on their own. They are conditions a person can live with for decades, not days.
• They are isolating. Each of them, in the social landscape of the early Muslim community, alienated the sufferer from family, work, and the congregational life of the mosque. The leper was kept at a distance; the person with vitiligo carried a permanent visible mark; the person whose reason had departed was no longer integrated into the everyday jama’ah.
• They can erode rida. Patience over a passing fever is one thing. Patience over thirty years of progressive disfigurement, or over a permanent loss of contact with one’s own intellect, is something else. Al-Tibi’s point is that these afflictions strain the believer’s contentment with Allah’s decree to an extent that ordinary illness does not. The dua is a request not to be tested at that level.

The fourth term — sayyi’il asqam, “evil diseases” — is then a deliberate generalisation. The Prophet ﷺ named the three conditions his community knew, then added a clause to cover anything of the same character that might exist in another time or place. Modern parallels are not hard to see: chronic neurological conditions, late-stage cancers, untreated severe mental illness, certain disabling autoimmune disorders. The dua makes a claim about category, not about a fixed list of seventh-century diseases.

When and How to Recite It

The Sunnah places this dua among the general adhkar of seeking refuge. There is no single fixed time it must be said, but several recurring contexts fit it naturally:

• Morning and evening adhkar. The collections of adhkar al-sabah wal-masa’ assembled by Imam an-Nawawi, Ibn al-Qayyim, and later Ibn al-Jazari include this supplication alongside the wider seeking-of-refuge formulas the Prophet ﷺ recited after Fajr and after Asr. Reciting it once in the morning and once in the evening is the routine practice most scholars recommend.
• After the obligatory prayers. As one of the protection-themed duas in the post-salah cycle, it can be added after the standard tasbih (Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah, Allahu akbar) and Ayat al-Kursi, particularly after Fajr and Maghrib.
• On entering a place where illness is present. Visiting the sick or entering a hospital is an occasion the dua fits naturally — both as a personal seeking of refuge and as a reminder that ‘afiyah is a gift, not a baseline.
• When you feel symptoms appearing. The dua does not replace medical treatment; the Sunnah explicitly endorses seeking the means (al-asbab) — see the wider duas for shifa and good health. But it can be recited alongside taking those means.

There is no required posture, no raising of the hands, and no minimum or maximum number of repetitions. Some scholars recommend three repetitions on the basis of the general pattern of the Prophetic adhkar (where threefold recitation is common), but the texts do not fix a number for this dua specifically. Sincerity, presence of heart, and consistency over time are what scholars consistently weight more highly than count.

One practical note: this is a personal seeking of refuge, said by an individual for themselves. It can also be recited for others — for a sick relative, for a child, for a community — by changing the pronoun appropriately or by simply asking Allah to grant the same protection for the named person. There is nothing in the hadith that restricts it to first-person use.

The Hadith Source and Authentication

The dua is recorded in Sunan Abi Dawud, in the Book of Witr — Detailed Injunctions about Witr, in the chapter on Seeking Refuge — as hadith 1554. The contemporary reference number is 1554; some older editions and citation systems use 1549 for the same hadith, which reflects different numbering schemes rather than a different text.

The narration is from the companion Anas ibn Malik (raḍiya Allahu ‘anhu), the long-serving servant of the Prophet ﷺ who transmitted hundreds of sayings about the Prophet’s private routine. Anas reports: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to say: Allahumma inni a’udhu bika minal-baras, wal-junun, wal-judham, wa min sayyi’il-asqam.“

The dua has parallel narrations in other primary collections:

• Musnad Ahmad 12592 — same wording, same narrator (Anas ibn Malik).
• Sunan an-Nasa’i — recorded in the section on seeking refuge.
• Riyad as-Salihin 1484 — Imam an-Nawawi included the hadith in his anthology in the chapter on supplications for protection.

The grading of the hadith is Sahih. Shaykh Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani graded it sahih in his rulings on Sunan Abi Dawud, and Shaykh Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut — a different scholarly authority working from a different methodological school — independently graded it sahih in his edition of Musnad Ahmad. Having two grading authorities of this standing converge on the same verdict is one of the stronger forms of confirmation a hadith can carry.

For verification of the wording and chain, the canonical online reference is at sunnah.com/abudawud:1554. The wording printed there matches what is given above; readers who want the Arabic original with the full isnad can consult that entry directly.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “Allahumma inni a’udhu bika minal barasi” mean in English?

It means “O Allah, I seek refuge in You from leucoderma, insanity, leprosy, and from evil diseases.” The Prophet ﷺ named three specific conditions — baras (vitiligo), junun (insanity), and judham (leprosy) — and then closed the dua with a generalising clause covering any other severe disease.

What is the difference between baras and judham in this dua?

Baras (الْبَرَص) is leucoderma or vitiligo — a pigmentation disorder that produces white patches on the skin. It is not contagious and does not amputate. Judham (الْجُذَام) is leprosy proper — Hansen’s disease — which damages peripheral nerves and progressively leads to the loss of digits and facial features. The two are commonly confused in English translations, but the Prophet ﷺ named them separately because they are different conditions with different Arabic roots: ب-ر-ص for baras, and ج-ذ-م (“to cut off”) for judham.

From which hadith is the dua “Allahumma inni a’udhu bika minal barasi wal junun” narrated?

It is narrated by Anas ibn Malik (raḍiya Allahu ‘anhu) and recorded in Sunan Abi Dawud 1554, in the Book of Witr — Chapter on Seeking Refuge. The same wording is preserved in Musnad Ahmad 12592 and in Imam an-Nawawi’s Riyad as-Salihin as hadith 1484.

Is the dua “Allahumma inni a’udhu bika minal barasi” sahih or hasan?

It is Sahih. Shaykh al-Albani graded it sahih in his rulings on Sunan Abi Dawud, and Shaykh Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut independently graded it sahih in his edition of Musnad Ahmad. Two grading authorities working from different methodological backgrounds converging on the same sahih verdict is among the stronger forms of authentication a hadith can receive.

When should I recite the dua for protection from diseases?

The Sunnah does not fix a single mandatory time. The dua is most commonly recited as part of the morning and evening adhkar (after Fajr and after Asr), and as one of the protection-themed supplications after the obligatory prayers — particularly after Fajr and Maghrib. It is also appropriate when entering a hospital, visiting the sick, or noticing early symptoms of an illness, though it is not a substitute for medical treatment.

Can I recite this dua for someone who is already sick?

Yes. Nothing in the hadith restricts the dua to first-person use, and seeking Allah’s protection for others is a well-attested Sunnah category in its own right. You can recite it for a relative, a friend, or a community by changing the pronoun appropriately or by asking Allah to grant the same refuge to the named person. For broader supplications used at the bedside of a sick person, see the wider collection of duas for shifa, pain, and good health.

Memorise the wording, add it to your morning and evening routine, and recite it after the obligatory prayers. The dua is short, the grading is solid, and what it asks for is a category of protection that is hard to overstate: refuge from the kind of affliction that does not leave, that isolates, and that strains contentment with the decree more than any passing illness ever could.