Like many Islamic works, the books contained information based upon medicinal herbs, aromatic compounds, such as musk, and inorganic medicines. It could, quite legitimately, be argued that the Islamic contribution to the history of medicine saw the first divide between medicine and pharmacology as separate sciences.
Many Sanskrit works were translated into Arabic and Indian medicine certainly lay at the heart of Islamic medicine. Al Tabari, (810 - 855) wrote a book known as 'The Paradise of Wisdom,' in 850, which was based largely upon the earlier works of Galen and Hippocrates, but it also included an appendix with translations from Indian sources.
All aspects of Islamic thought rely on the relationship symbolized by the traditional figure of the hakim, or sage, who combines medical skill with intimate knowledge of the other sciences, natural philosophy, and metaphysics. The leading Arab philosophers— Avicenna, Averroës, and Maimonides —were all great physicians.
The sources of Islamic Law are the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the traditions of the Prophet). Most of these texts have been digitized in various translations and are available on the web.
The major contribution of the Islamic Age to the history of medicine was the establishment of hospitals, paid for by the charitable donations known as Zakat tax. There is evidence that these hospitals were in existence by the 8th Century and they were soon widespread across the Islamic world, ...
The Father of Islamic Medicine - Al Razi (rhazes) Al -Razi, known to the Europeans as Rhazes (may be spelt Rhases, Rasis, Rasi or ar-Razi) (850 - 923), was at the forefront of Islamic research into medicine.
As well as extensive translation work, he wrote a book called 'The Book of Introduction to Medicine,' which drew heavily upon Galen but also included many unique and novel additions. His work was probably the first Islamic medical text translated into Latin.
The Islamic Golden Age, spanning the 8 th to the 15 th Centuries, saw many great advances in science, as Islamic scholars gathered knowledge from across the known world and added their own findings.
Al Razi wrote extensively on the crucial relationship between doctor and patient, believing that they should develop a relationship built upon trust and , as the doctor had a duty to help the patient, the patient had the duty to follow the doctor's advice. Like Galen, he believed that a holistic approach to medicine was crucial, taking into account the background of the patient and also considering any ailments suffered by close family, as with modern medicine.
Whilst the Age of Islam was a time of intellectualism and scientific, social and philosophical advances, the greatest contribution to the world was Islamic medicine. The Islamic scholars gathered vast amounts of information, from around the known world, adding their own observations and developing techniques and procedures that would form the basis of modern medicine. In the history of medicine, Islamic medicine stands out as the period of greatest advance, certainly before the technology of the Twentieth Century.
Certainly, this period of the history of medicine was centuries ahead of Europe, still embedded in the Dark Ages. Central to Islamic medicine was belief in the Qur'an and Hadiths, which stated that Muslims had a duty to care for the sick and this was often referred to as "Medicine of the Prophet.". According to the sayings ...
However, it remains a living art in Pakistan, Egypt, other Muslim countries, and India where practitioners are still known as hakims. In India, traditional Islamic medicine receives considerable backing from the public-health authorities as an alternative to more costly, Western-style biomedicine.
In marked contrast, the Muslims put a premium on cleanliness and dietary regime. The ritual cleansing of the body precedes each of the five daily prayers, a requirement that sparked the development of sophisticated public-water projects and ingenious engineering techniques. Religious law proscribed a number of unhealthy practices, including the consumption of alcohol, while a large collection of sayings and practices ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad, later collated as the tibb al-Nabi, or The Medicine of the Prophet, provided a general blueprint for healthy living and abstemious behavior.
He then defines medicine as “the art whereby health is conserved and the art whereby it is restored, after being lost.”.
The Book of Instruction, an informative memoir by the Syrian princeling Usama ibn Munqidh, who came to know the Crusaders in battle and in repose, records two instances in which a local physician’s sound advice was ignored in favor of Christian methodologies. In the first, the Franks simply lopped off a knight’s mildly infected leg with an axe; in the second, they carved a cross into an ill woman’s skull before rubbing it with salt. Both patients died on the spot, at which point the Arab doctor asked, “‘Do you need anything else from me?’ ‘No,’ they said. And so I left, having learned about their medicine things I had never known before.”
Religious law proscribed a number of unhealthy practices, including the consumption of alcohol, while a large collection of sayings and practices ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad, later collated as the tibb al-Nabi, or The Medicine of the Prophet, provided a general blueprint for healthy living and abstemious behavior.
W hen 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 the movements of the three-dimensional universe on its bronze faceplate; as a result, they could not even date their most important religious holiday, Easter, nor accurately tell the time of day.
Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygiene of the body and hygiene of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.
Oxford Islamic Studies Online features articles, biographies, primary texts, Qur'anic materials, and books by scholars in areas such as global Islamic history, concepts, people, practices, politics, and culture . Articles come from The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, ...
The titles have all been published since 2003 and are held in the Library of Congress. The listing is divided into three sections: works on Islamic law in general, works on the history of Islamic law, and works devoted to a specific area of law.
IndexIslamicus, produced by the Islamic Bibliography Unit at Cambridge University Library, is a bibliography of publications in European languages on all aspects of Islam and the Muslim world. Index Islamicus provides access to over 2,000 journals and series. Coverage includes 1906-present.
The Journal of Islamic Law & Culture contains the full text of documents that are dedicated to the understanding of Islamic law and culture in America's legal, religious, and Muslim communities.
The UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law contains the full text of documents that are dedicated to the scholarly review of legal issues that are of importance to Muslims and Near Easterners.
The Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern & Islamic Law is a US-based law journal that covers relevant topics in Middle Eastern, Islamic, and comparative law.
A good place to start is the Harvard online public catalogue called Hollis . General books dealing with Islamic law are catalogued under Islamic Law. Other topics are catalogued with the topic--marriage for example and Islamic law.