Islamic medicine
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| of Islamic civilization |
In the history of medicine, the term Islamic medicine, Arab medicine, or medicine of the Arabs refers to medicine that developed in the golden age of Islam and was written in Arabic, which was the language of common communication at the time of Islamic civilization. Islamic medicine arose as a result of the interaction between traditional Arab medicine and external influences. The first translations of medical texts were a key factor in the formation of Islamic medicine. Latin translations of Arabic works also had a great impact on the development of medicine at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance.
And at a time when the Western Church prohibited the medical industry, because disease is a punishment from God that man should not divert from those who deserve it, a belief that prevailed in the West until the twelfth century. In the ninth century AD, Muslims began to develop a medical system based on scientific analysis. With time, people began to be convinced of the importance of health sciences, and the first doctors worked hard to find ways of treatment. Islam in the Middle Ages produced some of the greatest doctors in history, who developed hospitals, practiced surgery on a large scale, and even practiced medicine for women. There were even two female doctors from the Ibn Zahr family who served in the court of the Almohad caliph Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in the twelfth century AD. Female doctors, midwives, and nursing mothers were mentioned in the literary writings of that period.
Abu Bakr al-Razi and Ibn Sina are the greatest of these physicians, and their books have been taught in Islamic medical schools for long periods, and they, especially Ibn Sina, had a great impact on medicine in Europe in the Middle Ages. During the aforementioned ages, Muslims used to classify medicine as a branch of natural philosophy, influenced by the ideas of Aristotle and Galen. They knew specialization, and among them were ophthalmologists, known as kohlil, in addition to surgeons, phlebotomists, cuppers, and gynecologists.
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| of Islamic civilization |
The emergence of Islamic medicine
In the pre-Islamic era, medicine was primitive and was limited to experiments and incantations inherited among individuals. Most of it was confined to cauterization with fire, eradication of rotten limbs, treatment with honey and a decoction of some botanical herbs, and resorting to some spells and amulets at the hands of soothsayers and diviners. After the Islamic conquests in the East, the Arabs took an interest in the works of ancient Greek and Roman physicians such as Hippocrates, Galen, and Dioscorides, which the Syriacs had transferred to their language at the Jundishapur school, to which they fled to escape the persecution of the Byzantine emperors of the Nestorian sect they embraced. And with the beginning of the Abbasid era, the matter developed after the Arabs began to transfer medical sciences from their Greek sources directly, after they knew the weakness in the Syriac translations, at the hands of some doctors who were skilled in the Greek, such as Al Bakhtishu’ and Hanin bin Ishaq. Over time, the practice of the medical profession spread to such an extent that the number of doctors in Baghdad alone during the time of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir Billah reached more than 860 doctors. Rather, works appeared that classify doctors according to the time period in which they lived or according to the areas they settled in, and perhaps the most important of them is my book “Tabaqat Al-Doctors.” Al-Hukama’ by Ibn Jaljal and ‘Uyun al-Anba’ fi Tabaqat al-Tibaa’ by Ibn Abi Asaba’.
The most famous Muslim doctors
“The art of treatment was dead, until Galen revived it; it was scattered, so Al-Razi arranged it, and it was incomplete, so Ibn Sina completed it.”
Many Muslim doctors became famous, and they had distinguished contributions that elevated their status, such as Abu Bakr al-Razi, who called him “Galen of Arabia” for his writings and achievements in medicine. Some also consider him the father of Islamic medicine, and the greatest physician in the Islamic world, in addition to his fame as a physician. Al-Razi was an encyclopedic scholar, author of two hundred works, half of which were on medicine. Al-Razi is considered the first to attribute the cause of some diseases to genetic causes [?]. Al-Razi was "the first Muslim physician in the Middle Ages to practice medicine in a comprehensive and encyclopedic way, surpassing Galen himself ... Al-Razi is famous for being the first to accurately describe and differentiate between smallpox and measles." Al-Zahrawi, who was considered by the West to be the “father of modern surgery,” and Ibn al-Nafis, the discoverer of the small blood circulation, also shone among them. And Ibn al-Jazzar, the author of the book The traveler's provision and the present's sustenance.
The Muslim physician and philosopher Ibn Sina also shined among them for his scientific works, especially for his writings on medicine. Ibn Sina is also famous for his two books of law in medicine, which is the most famous, and the book of healing. His other works have covered topics on heart medications and kidney disease treatment. Ibn Sina was called the prince of doctors and their leader, and he was the most authoritative physician in the Middle Ages. His books on medicine were translated into most languages of the world and remained for nearly six centuries the global reference in medicine.