Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Islam

  • Al-Biruni (973–1048)

    Asad BakirGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States In the year 973 during the Islamic Golden Age, there was born in the city of Kath in Khwarezm (modern Uzbekistan) one of the greatest polymaths of all time. His complete name was Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni; the last name is derived from the Persian word birun…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Plague epidemics and the evolution of language in England

    Andrew P. K. Wodrich Washington, DC, United States   Pierart dou Tielt’s illustration depicts the mortal toll of the Black Death in a Belgian town circa 1353. Similarly, the plague decimated the population of England, spurring the change from French to English as the country’s dominant spoken language. Via Wikimedia Commons here.  Epidemics have had a profound impact…

  • 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…

  • Faith, neuroscience, and “the thorn” in Paul’s side: Abrahamic interpretations of epilepsy

    Christina Perri Stony Brook, New York, United States   Despite the stigma surrounding epilepsy in the Abrahamic faith traditions, some Christian art uses the boy with epilepsy as a visual metaphor for the Passion. As the boy appears to die and rise from a seizure, so too Christ dies and rises to Heaven. The experience…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Mixing medicine – Religion and science

    Aneesa BodiatSouth Africa The ameer chewed on the dry date my husband had presented to him, saying a prayer and then placing the chewed fruit back into the container, sealing it for use in a few days when my baby boy would be born. This particular ameer or religious leader was from Medina, the holy…

  • 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…