Muslim Achievements in Science
From the magazine, 'Islam: A Global Civilization'

The Medical Science
The hadiths of the Prophet contain many instructions concerning health including dietary habits; these sayings became the foundation of what came to be known later as 'Prophetic medicine' (at-tib an-Nabawi ). Because of the great attention paid in Islam to the need to take care of the body and to hygiene, early in Islamic history Muslims began to cultivate the field of medicine, turning once again to all the knowledge that was available to them from Greek, Persian and Indian sources.

At first the great physicians among Muslims were mostly Christian but by the 9th century Islamic medicine, properly speaking, was born with the appearance of the major compendium, The Paradise of Wisdom (Firdaws al-Hikmah ) by 'Ali ibn Rabban at-Tabari, who synthesized the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions of medicine with those of India and Persia. His student, Muhammad ibn Zakariyya' ar-Razi (the Latin Rhazes), was one of the greatest of physicians who emphasized clinical medicine and observation. He was a master of prognosis and psychosomatic medicine and also of anatomy.

He was the first to identify and treat smallpox, to use alcohol as an antiseptic and make medical use of mercury as a purgative. His Kitab al-Hawi (Continens) is 'the longest work ever written in Islamic medicine and he was recognized as a medical authority in the West up to the 18th century.
The greatest of all Muslim physicians, however, was Abu Ali ibn Sina (Latin Avicenna) who was called 'the prince of physicians' in the West. He synthesized Islamic medicine in his major masterpiece, al-Qanun fi't-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine), which is the most famous of all medical books in history. It was the final authority in medical matters in Europe for nearly six centuries and is still taught wherever Islamic medicine has survived to this day in such lands as Pakistan and India. Ibn Sina discovered many drugs and identified and treated several ailments such as meningitis but his greatest contribution was in the philosophy of medicine. He created a system of medicine within which medical practice could be carried out and in which physical and psychological factors; drugs and diet are combined.

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