Introduction
Imagine that you enter a 9 th -century Baghdad hospital. It is so humming-students writing, patients free treatment. A physician is relaxed when he or she examines someone, sure of his or her expertise. They are not only healing people; they are praising God.
It is worship that is the beginning of Islamic medicine, not dry science, or an imitation of the Greeks.
Knowledge as Worship
In Islam, studying (ilm) is not only hobby, and a holy one at that. The Quran continues to say: imagine and meditate, observe–young world of ours a school.
and he instructed Adam on the names of everything (Qur’an 2:31).
Say: Are you no better than those who do not know? (Qur’an 39:9).
This meant that medicine was obedience to God, as practiced by early Muslims so that they could practice mercy (rahma).
Translation or Transformation?
Others argue that Muslims just translated Greek medicine, easy, but lazy history. They can say, they did well to get Galen and Hippocrates, but that was not all.
Galen was openly challenged by Al-Razi (rhazes). The Canon of Medicine is a work by Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and was taught in Europe throughout the centuries. They criticized and went up societies and reformulated what they understood.
For them, truth was universal. It was the gift of God whether this proved to be Greece, India, or Persia. Translation was transformed into translation.
Prophetic Medicine Vs. Rational Medicine.
Here’s the cool part. Two streams existed in the Islamic medicine:
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- Tibb ada al-Nabawi Honey, black seed, cupping, all based on the hadiths.
Rational medicine Humoral theory, anatomy, surgery, founded on observation and logic.
- Tibb ada al-Nabawi Honey, black seed, cupping, all based on the hadiths.
They did not contradict each other but complemented each other. Revelation taught, Reason brought on procedures.
Yet tensions existed. Its philosophy was beaten about by some, beliefs in hadith cures were hung onto by others, and progress was curtailed. The remnant of that argument is still heard today: the patients demand natural or psychological remedies in the middle of cancer therapy, when oncologists are promoting evidence which the medieval doctors years ago regretted so much.
Hospitals as Mercy in Action
The earliest Islamic hospitals (bimaristans) were novel. Free treatment was paid with charitable endowments (waqf), there were free wards, pharmacies, including music therapy.
Comparison with European healing shrines/monasteries- these were frequently superstitious. There were orderly, professional, ethical Islamic hospitals.
But let’s be critical. They also exaggerated the leaders; a great hospital changed the political legality. Power and mercy hand in hand went In one direction.
There is still conflict in modern hospitals between corporate branding and good service- PR and care thus the conflict has not ended.
The Soul, the Body, and Humors.
The Islamic medicine based much on the humoral theory: black bile, yellow bile,phlegm, and blood. Equilibrium equated to wellness; disequilibrium equated to illness.
This was similar to Quranic moderation (wasatiyya). It was not only a matter of balance at the physical level, but rather on the spiritual and social level.
Humoral theory was not limitless. It was described as fever or melancholy as opposed to cancer or infections. Most treatments were unproven and astrology at times amalgamated.
It was an argument of Muslim doctors. Al-Razi disbelieved in astrology; quacks were counselled by other people. They did not simply have to be unthinking followers; they doubted; criticism in religion, and we still need that.
The Ethos of Healing
The Prophet (peace be upon him) argued: To every disease Allah has sent down a cure (Ibn 3438). The Islamic medicine was influenced by that Prettyhadith. And healing was more than could be found: doctors need only seek it.
The doctors were to be of adab al-tabib physicianly ethics: sincere, kind-hearted, selfless. Some failed to keep living, the book observes predatory doctors, perfigures morals.
Yet the ideal mattered. It was not a business like medicine, it was worship.
Women in the Story
It has been overshadowed; women belonged to Islamic medicine. There were female physicians, midwives and nurses. The few sources available are due to the fact that the histories are written by patriarch historians and women do not play an important part.
Such an absence demonstrates half was left of the contribution of the ummah. In case knowledge constitutes a form of worship, then we must read history with this in mind.
Continuity and Afterlife
The so-arnophagic lapse did not cause the disappearance of Islamic medicine. It continued in both Ottoman and Persian and South Asian traditions which influenced European medicine as well. Avicenna taught Canon centuries in Montpellier and Padua.
The tradition was worn out, however, as Muslims picked other foundations off-center over time: colonization, lack of progress within the country, and dependence on foreign scientific knowledge poisoned the tradition.
The lesson? A possession of knowledge implies permanence. become uncurious, become a strong petty despot.
What It Means for Us Today
We doctors of the present-day world hear echoes everywhere I believe.
Black seed is still demanded by patients to be used together with chemotherapy.
Hospitals have charity and profit.
There is still a struggle between science and spirituality.
These tensions are not so new in Islamic medicine. Muslims who came before us dealt with them–poorly and here and there well.
The key points?
Knowledge is worship. Healing is mercy. Critique is part of faith.
Contemplative Remarks in Islamocentric terms.
Oneness of Knowledge: No fierce barrier between science and faith. Secular medicine in the modern day tends to unmerge them. Is it Muslims who should rebuild integration?
Ethics First: When medicine internalizes the thread of profit it goes against Islam. Can hospitals of today be in consistency with rahma?
Charging Tradition: Humoral theory was criticized. Should we ask about the detrimental cultural beliefs, which individuals attribute to so-called Islamic medicine?
Women Erasure/ Why does Islamic medical history so downplay the role of women? Are we also doing the same exclusion nowadays?
Global Legacy: Europe: Avicenna is to some extent the formulation of medicine that Europe invented. Why do Muslims forget him? We must reclaim, not to boast, but inculcate fresh innovation.
Conclusion
The Islamic medicine did not come out of the thin air. It expanded in which an understanding was sacral, health was grace, wonder was faith in working.
Muslims translated the work of ancient Greeks, tested it, constructed hospitals as a form of worship and power, combined Prophetic cures with logical investigation. They discussed, criticized, tested.
It wasn’t perfect. But it lived.
When you put on your white coat, then, consider, ask yourself, is medicine that you use as a business, or worship?
