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Early Islamic Medicine

When the Western European army of the cross brought the First Crusade to the Holy Land in 1096, the Arabs of the Near East were less impressed by the army’s religious zeal than they were appalled by its stench. The disease-ridden body of the Christian host included true believers and righteous folk but also, according to the report of the medieval chronicler Albert of Aix in his Historia Hierosolymita, “adulterers, homicides, thieves, perjurers, and robbers.” Few had any learning at all. Ignorant of even the rudiments of science, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and sanitation, they knew nothing of the workings of that prince of medieval scientific devices, the astrolabe, which captured…

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 History of Medicine in the Islamic Civilization

For early Muslims, knowledge was a treasure they would eagerly seek. Medical science and pharmacy were no exceptions.

 The Dramatic History of Islamic Medicine

Muhammad Al-Razi, known as the father of Islamic medicine, was the greatest medical scholar and practitioner of his day. Many of his medical texts continued to be consulted in the Middle East and Europe hundreds of years after his death in 925.

Articles of Interest

How Early Islamic Science Advanced Medicine

The growth of Islam in the seventh century sparked a golden age of scientic discovery. Building on the wisdom of ancient civilizations, Muslim doctors pushed the boundaries of medical science into bold new places.

How Islam changed medicine

Islamic civilisation once extended from India in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. Buildings in Andalusia such as the Alhambra in Granada, the Mezquita in Cordoba, and the Giralda in Seville are reminders of the architectural imprint this civilisation left on western Europe. Less well remembered, however, is the impact of Islamic civilisation on Western science, technology, and medicine between the years 800 and 1450.

Islam's forgotten contributions to medical science

The transmission of medical knowledge can be traced to some of the earliest writings in human history. Yet a particularly fruitful period for advancement in medical science emerged with the rise of Islam. For the most part, Western scholarship belittles the contribution of the physicians of the Islamic world. They are usually perceived as simple purveyors of Greek science to the scholars of the Renaissance. However, the facts show otherwise.

Islamic Medicine and Evolutionary Medicine: A Comparative Analysis

The rudiments of Islamic medicine began with the advent and spread of Islam (circa 7th century C.E.)

Medieval Islamic Medicine

Medicine (that of the Hippocratic tradition) was largely forgotten in Western Europe, which became the hub of a different medical tradition. However, in the Islamic world of the Middle East that tradition was maintained through the early 2nd millennium CE so that Europeans could pick up in the late 15th century CE a far advanced copy of what they had largely left behind 500 years before. Hence, the Islamic culture was crucial to the progression and expansion of the medical practice as we know it today.

Science, medicine and everyday life in the Islamic world

The Islamic world housed some of the first and most advanced hospitals from the 8th century, notably in Baghdad and Cairo. Built in 805, the Baghdad hospital housed a medical school and a library. Unlike medieval Christian hospitals, its aim was to treat patients, not just to care for them.

The Islamic Roots of Modern Pharmacy

Al-Biruni’s definition of the pharmacist could have been written today. Along the road from sympathetic magic and shamanism to scientific method, much trailblazing was carried out over a few centuries by scholars, alchemists, physicians and polymaths of the Muslim Middle East, and their rules, procedures and expectations are, to a great extent, practiced almost universally today.

Resources

6 Important Islamic Acheivements in Medieval Medicine

The Islamic achievements in medieval medicine were groundbreaking. While medieval European medicine was still mired in superstitions and the rigid Catholic teachings of the Church, the advent of Islam in the 7th century A.D. gave rise to impressive growth and discoveries in many scientific fields, especially medicine.

International Institute of Islamic Medicine

IM is a project of IMANA dedicated to research and promotion of Islamic Medicine, its rich history, its impact on modern medicine and its applications in contemporary times. Formed by the action of IMANA Executive Council in February of 1993 IIIM now functions under the direction and able leadership of eminent Muslim Physicians who have served as Presidents of IMANA and have dedicated themselves to this task.

International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine

There is a consensus amongst researchers of the history of medicine that early Arab and Muslim physicians had played a very important role in the development of medical science during the renaissance of Islamic civilization, which spanned for eight centuries. This was achieved through translating earlier medical and scientific scripts and developing these sciences in the light of their clinical expertise.

Explorable

The Islamic Golden Age, spanning the 8th to the 15th Centuries, saw many great advances in science, as Islamic scholars gathered knowledge from across the known world and added their own findings.