MIDDLE EAST AND THE RISE OF ISLAM

HISTORY OF ARAB/PROPHETIC MEDICINE

After the prophet Muhammad's death in 632 CE, a great expansion of the Arab Empire took place throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Under the Umayyad caliphate, local political structures remained intact, but by the Abbasid caliphate, the capital of the Arab Empire's administration became centralized in Baghdad (762 CE).

What is known about medicine and disability before Islam and during its expansion is difficult to summarize, as medical approaches were not monolithic but varied and often contradictory. There is a general consensus, however, that healing the sick was, and continues to be, considered in all legal schools of Islam, one of the highest forms of serving Allah (God), second only in importance to performing religious rituals. Despite medicine's high place in Arab-Islamic culture, the Qur'an itself seldom speaks directly of medicine except for references to the curative properties of honey, instructions for ways to wash for prayer when ill, and statements that the sick, lame, or blind are not inherently at fault for their disability. Muslims consider the text to embody the guidance and wisdom that restores and maintains both physical and psychological health. The Qur'an does not espouse a mind-body doctrine of the body, but it does use metaphors of disability such as deafness and blindness in references to God's decision to make some individuals struggle to reach the truth. Mostly, attitudes about and treatment of disease and disability in Islam are embedded within the historical development of Muslim political expansion and rule rather than derived from the sacred text. Following from this, the force and contributions of Islamic medicine during the medieval period were felt by both Muslim and non-Muslim residents of the Arab Empire.

The early ninth century marked the Hellenization of Islam, with translations of Greek, Syriac, Sanskrit, and Pahlavi medical texts into Arabic and subsequent commentaries and expositions by Arabic and Persian physicians. By the end of the ninth century, nearly all of Galen's writings had been translated into Arabic, reflecting the significant influence of his medicine in Arab scientific circles. As such, the Arab-Islamic medical tradition is based on the Graeco-Roman one, with humoral theory at its core.

Several physicians who wrote original treatises and compendiums on medical topics are worth mentioning due to their handling of disability and its treatment. [Page 1093]Al-Razi (Rhazes), a well-known Persian clinician who lived from 865 to 925 CE, wrote Al-Hawi fi l-tibb (All-Inclusive Work on Medicine), a 24-volume encyclopedia of medicine. Among other things, this work deals with hereditary diseases, diseases affecting women, and eye diseases. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) wrote Qanun al-Tibb (Canon of Medicine), a 14-volume work that investigated the contagious nature of pulmonary tuberculosis, described the symptoms and complications of diabetes mellitus, and examined various psychological illnesses. The Canon became the most authoritative reference book in European universities until the seventeenth century. Finally, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Albucasis) lived in Cordoba, Spain, during the tenth century. Regarded as an expert pharmacist-surgeon, he wrote a manual on surgery called Al-Tasrif li-man `ajaza an al-talif (Recourse of He Who Cannot Compose a Medical Work of His Own) that included sections detailing methods for amputating limbs and removing foreign bodies. These books were later translated into Latin for widespread use in Europe.

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