Tag: Islam
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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…
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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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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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Plague epidemics and the evolution of language in England
Andrew P. K. WodrichWashington, DC, United States Epidemics have had a profound impact on culture across time. The Antonine Plague, a suspected outbreak of smallpox, wreaked havoc on the Roman Empire of the second century. Amongst its many cultural sequelae, this plague caused a renewed sense of spiritualism and religiosity, which may have created an…
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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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Faith, neuroscience, and “the thorn” in Paul’s side: Abrahamic interpretations of epilepsy
Christina PerriStony Brook, New York, United States The experience of epileptic seizures, as characterized by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and others, resonates with the intense religious consciousness of shamans, who describe losing all sense of time, place, and even self.1 Most religious traditions have complex or even ugly relationships with epilepsy that offer explanations for…
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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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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…
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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…