Journal of - International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine

Arthur SANIOTIS
Islamic Medicine and Future Western biomedicine:
Potential Areas of Integration
Quranic encouragement for Muslims to discover the signs
(ayat) or meta-patterns of unity and interconnectedness
that are immanent in nature. Islamic cosmology views creation
as being replete with multitudinous signs awaiting to
be revealed to those individuals who have the appropriate
level of spiritual maturity. This notion of nature as book of
signs was a major reason for fostering Islamic inquiry and
experimentation. Both the cosmos and nature manifest
Vestigio Dei (34).
We shall show them our signs upon the horizons
and within their souls until it becomes manifest to them
that it is the truth (Qur’an 41:53).
It should be understood that Tawhid became a Muslim
leitmotif for understanding creation as a unified
and interconnected field. As Nasr explains:
The question of the Unity of the Divine Principle
and the consequent unicity of Nature is particularly important
in Islam where the idea of Unity over-shadows
all others and remains at every level of Islamic civilization
the most basic principle upon which all else
depends....The formula of Unity is the most universal
criterion of orthodoxy in Islam; that doctrine may be
said to be Islamic that affirms this unity in one way or
other (35).
In this way, Tawhid became a basis for describing the
‘natural’ principle for forming unities, inter-relationships,
mutuality and symbiosis. In scientific terminology, Tawhid
may be expressed as the holon principle which in nature
can be observed by the relational unities of parts/wholes and
their “dynamic constellations” (36). The cosmic compulsion
towards creating and maintaining unities is evident from
atomic and molecular levels to the formation of galaxies.
In Batesonian terms, holons are meta-patterns that exhibit
cybernetic processes immanent in nature; a “vast, interconnected
whole” that is the totality of all mental, organic and
cosmic systems (37). The biological phenomenon of symbiosis
is an aspect of tawhid as is the formation of human collectivities
in all of their diversity, beginning with familial units.
The concept of unity is central to the Muslim religious imagination
such as praying towards the direction of the Ka’aba
in Mecca five times a day. The Muslim principle of sharing
and treating Muslims as a single collective is another way in
which tawhid may be used in a sociological sense (38).
Early Muslim physicians were guided by Tawhid in understanding
the human body and the notions of health and
illness. In Islamic medical theory, every human being represents
a unicity of psycho-physical energies. Ill health is
due to a loss of internal equilibrium of these energies which
compromises the body’s wholeness. For example, the human
body comprises approximately ten trillion cells of two
hundred types. While differentiated, the body’s cells work
in maintaining bodily equilibrium. Similarly, the brain
which is composed of one hundred million neurons and
one hundred trillion synaptic connections work as a unicity
to produce different kinds of conscious and unconscious
states. The ‘flowing’ nature of ordinary consciousness is
due to the interactivity of neurons and the neuro-hormonal
system.
Again using the Tawhid analogy, medieval Islamic
medicine viewed the human being (al-insan) as a microcosm
(‘alam saghir). The body was essentially a miniature
of the cosmos (al-’alam), wherein its corporeal structure
and organisation correlated with those parts which “make
up the wholeness of the universe” (39). According to a Sufism,
“the Cosmos is like a big man and man is like a little
cosmos” (40). According to this microcosm/macrocosm
schema the body consists of four humours (black bile, yellow
bile, phlegm, blood) which are connected to the four
basic elements (earth, water, fire, air) and the four seasons.
These four humours result in the four human temperaments
(sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic). According
to ibn Sina, “From mixture of the four [humors]
in different weights, [God the most high] created different
organs; one with more blood like muscle, one with more
black bile like bone, one with more phlegm like brain, and
one with more yellow bile like lung” (41). Moreover, the
body contains twelve orifices which correspond with the
twelve zodiacal signs (42). In addition, the number of veins
in the body are equivalent to the number of solar days (42).
The microcosm/macrocosm analogy should be viewed
as an attempt by Muslim philosophers, past and present,
to maintain connectivities with the natural world. Such an
attempt works within the ambit of Tawhid as an organising
principle of human health. In similitude with traditional
Chinese medicine, Islamic medicine seeks to draw a connection
between the body and nature, and that harmony
in one produces the same in the other. For this reason,
Islamic medicine can be viewed as an ecological medical
approach. True human health is not simply the avoidance
of disease but the equilibrium between physical, psychological
and spiritual states. Such a balance enables the human
being towards attaining a refined understanding of
Tawhid as it operates in nature and the cosmos and to live
accordingly.
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ISHIM 2011-2012