Tag: Antiquity Middle Ages & Islam
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Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Baghdad physician and polymath
Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873), the “sheik of the translators,” was an influential Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist who lived in Baghdad at the height of the Abbasid civilization. He was very learned and spoke four languages: Arabic, Syriac, Greek, and Persian. Traveling to the Greek Byzantine Empire in search of manuscripts, he translated works…
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Emperor Claudius and his physician, Xenophon of Kos
Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Drusus Nero Germanicus, Emperor of Rome from 41 to 54 CE, though known to historians, became a household name in 1970 with the advent of the popular television series I, Claudius. But he had already gained attention several decades earlier, engendered by British author Robert Graves,…
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Physical benefits of Salat prayers in Islam
Nicholas GhantousLondon, United Kingdom The five pillars of Islam are the foundation of the religion. They define a practicing Muslim’s identity and guide Muslims towards communally shared values and service to Allah (God). The pillars consist of the profession of faith, pilgrimage, alms, fasting, and prayer. The pillar of prayer is known as salat. The…
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Book review: Greco-Roman Medicine and What it Can Teach Us Today
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The Republic of Rome was founded in the sixth century BC. In the third century BC, the western Roman Empire began to spread outside the borders of Italy. Roman rule came to Britain in AD 43 with the invasion by Claudius and ended in AD 476. The eastern Roman Empire,…
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From Baghdad to Chicago by Asad A. Bakir
The title of Dr. Bakir’s erudite and engaging book brings to mind another book with a similar title. It is From Bagdad to Stambul (1892), one of the series of adventures that places its heroes in the city where Dr. Bakir was born almost exactly half a century later. The author of these stories was…
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America’s Arab refugees: Vulnerability and health on the margins
Richard ZhangNew Haven, Connecticut, United States Arab refugees, like others throughout history, have grappled with issues of somatic and mental health, cultural belonging, and fertility. Timely and eye-opening, Marcia Inhorn’s America’s Arab Refugees is the first anthropological book to focus on the aforementioned refugees and their barriers to health. This work is exemplary in its…
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Islamic medicine
During the expansion of the Empire of Islam and its ensuing Golden Age, physicians from Spain to Samarkand advanced the medical sciences by reviving existing Greek medicine and adding their own innovations.1 There were many prominent physicians, dating back to the days of the Prophet himself. Often associated with hospitals or schools of pharmacy, some…
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Ibn Rushd (Averroes), medieval polymath
It is hard to know what to make of someone who has written books on philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, law, and linguistics. In our time this would have been impossible. Not so in medieval Andalusia, where Ibn Rushd, now best known under his Latinized name of Averroes, never missed a day reading or writing…
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Bimarstan al-Mansouri
Mona Youssef Cairo, Egypt Around 1248 AD, when Islam was at its prime and the Nile was wide, and its seven delta branches coursed through the land with a heavy network of connecting channels in place of the two branches left today, there was the Bimaristan al-Mansouri, with water channels from the Nile running through the hospital…
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Claudius: The Caesar never meant to be emperor
Abigail Cline ApplerAugusta, Georgia, United States Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (10 BC – AD 54) was Roman emperor from AD 41 to 54. During his reign, he completed the Roman conquest of Britain, expanded construction projects across the Empire, and quelled numerous coups, one of which involved his own wife. Though considered the most…