Tag: Islam
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Is healthcare a right?
Ronald Pies Boston, Massachusetts, United States Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane. —Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Introduction In this paper, I examine the question of whether healthcare is regarded as a “basic human right” in the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Though…
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Lithotripsy: a historical review
Rabie Abdel-HalimRiyadh, Saudi Arabia Although lithotripsy1 is often looked on as a modern discovery, its roots may be traced back to antiquity. Yet there is little mention of lithotripsy in Greek medical writings, perhaps because of Hippocrates’s injunction to avoid cutting for the stone2 (Cumston, 1968). This silence lasted for several centuries (Dimopoulos, Gialas, Likourinas,…
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Ibn Sīnā cures a prince who thinks he is a cow
Alan WeberDoha, Qatar Sifting through literature we recover strange grains of medical truth. The twelfth century poet Nizámí-i-‘Arúdí relates the following story about the celebrated physician Ibn Sīnā or Avicenna (AD 980–1037): One of the princes of the House of Búya was attacked by melancholy, and was in such wise affected by the disease that…
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Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi
Ramin SamSan Francisco, California, United States While Europe languished in the Middle Ages, the Islamic world sustained and contributed to the scientific and mathematic knowledge accumulated by the Greeks. One of the most influential of these scientists was Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, otherwise known as Rasis or Rhazes. Born in Rey (near present-day Teheran) in 865,…
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Philosophy of science and medicine series – VI: Islamic science
Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States The new science of the twelfth century was Arab in form but founded by the ancient Greeks. The Arabs preserved and transmitted a large body of Greek learning, and what content they added was perhaps less important than their change to the concept of why science ought to be studied.…
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Rhinoplasty and the roosari from ancient Persia to modern day Iran
Ryan CohenBoston, Massachusetts, United States “Roosari” is the Farsi term used for a head-covering. The famed Iranian veil is the most conspicuous feature of a modern Iranian woman’s ensemble. Yet, wearing the roosari was not always the norm. Only one generation ago, the country had banned this staple of Iranian wardrobe in the name of…
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Abulcasis, the pharmacist surgeon
Fadlurrahman ManafSurabaya, Indonesia Abu Al-Qasim Khalaf Ibn Al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi (AD 936–1013 AD), also known in the West as Abulcasis, was one of the most renowned surgeons of the Muslim era.1 Born in Zahra, six miles northwest of Cordova, he studied there, taught, and also practiced medicine and surgery.2 In addition to his knowledge of medicine…