Islamic Medicine History and Current Practice - International Society ...

ISLAMIC MEDICINE HISTORY AND CURRENT PRACTICEHusain F. NAGAMIAMohammed but then his four successors called the‘Pious Caliphs’ were to quickly consolidated andexpand the nation. Within one hundred years of cominginto existence, the Islamic empire had spreadfrom Spain in the West, to China in the East, andencompassed in its midst, the whole of NorthernAfrica, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Transjordan, CentralAsia and parts of Western India. Later it was to beeven carried further by the Muslim merchants to theshores of the far east including the Malaysian peninsula,the islands of the East Indies and Indonesia. Inits early era and for several centuries, the Islamicempire was centrally governed by a leader or‘Caliph’ and administered by provincial governors.The first four Caliphs were elected democraticallybut the later the Caliphate became dynastic. Laterstill a western Caliphate was established in Spain. Inlater history the Islamic Nation was to break up intovarious kingdoms, as the provincial rulers becomemore autonomous and independent of the center andwas ultimately to be overrun by the Sejluk Turks whowere the forerunners of the Ottoman empire.It was during the early Caliphates of the‘Ummayads’ and the ‘Abbasids’ that the maximumdevelopment of Islamic Medicine took place. It wasalso during this time and under the patronage of theseCaliphs that the great physicians both Muslim andnon-Muslim thrived, accumulated the wealth of medicalknowledge and cultivated a system of medicinethat was to be later called ‘Islamic Medicine’.The early era of Islamic Medicine and theSchool of Medicine at Jundishapur:Jundishapur or ‘Gondeshapur’ was a city inKhuzistan founded by a Sasnid emperor Shapur I(241-272 AD) before the advent of Islam. It was tosettle Greek prisoners, hence the name ‘WandewShapur’ or ‘acquired by Shapur.’ In present dayWestern Persia the site is marked by the ruins ofShahbad near the city of Ahwaz. The town was takenby Muslims during the caliphate of Hadrat Umar, byAbu Musa Al-Ashari in (17 AH/738 AD ). At thistime it already had a well established Hospital andMedical school.Many Syrians took refuge in the city whenAntioch was captured by Shapur I. In fact the latternicknamed the city ‘Vehaz-Andevi Shapur’ or‘Shapur is better than Antioch.’ The closing of theNestorian School of Edessa by Emperor Zeno in 489AD led to the Nestorians fleeing from there and seekingrefuge in Jundishapur under patronage of ShapurII, which got an academic boost as a result. TheGreek influence was already predominant inJundishapur when the closing of the Athenian schoolin 529 AD by order of the Byzantine emperorJustinian drove many learned Greek physicians tothis town. A University with a medical school and ahospital were established by Khusraw Anushirwanthe wise (531-579 AD) where the Greeco-Syriacmedicine blossomed. To this was added medicalknowledge from India brought by the physicianvizier of Anushirwan called ‘Burzuyah.’ On hisreturn the latter brought back from India the famous‘Fables of Bidpai’, several Indian Physicians, detailsof Indian Medical Texts and a Pahlavi translation ofthe ‘Kalila and Dimma.’ Khusraw was even presenteda translation of Aristotleian Logic and philosophy.Thus at the time of the Islamic invasion the school ofJundishapur was well established and had becomerenowned as a medical center of Greek, Syriac andIndian learning. This knowledge had intermingled tocreate a highly acclaimed and state of the art Medicalschool and hospital. After the advent of Islamic rulethe University continued to thrive. In fact the firstrecorded Muslim Physician Harith bin Kalada, whowas a contemporary of the Prophet acquired his medicalknowledge at medical school and hospital atJundishapur.It is likely that the medical teaching atJundishapur was modeled after the teaching atAlexandria with some influence from Antioch but itis important to note that ‘the treatment was basedentirely on scientific analysis, in true Hippocratictradition’, rather than a mix-up with superstition andrituals as was the case in Greek ‘asclepieia’ andByzantine ‘nosocomia’. This hospital and MedicalCenter was to become the model on which all laterIslamic Medical Schools and Hospitals were to bebuilt. The School none the less thrived during theUmmayid caliphate and Sergius of Rasul‘ayn translatedmedical and philosophical works of bothHippocrates and Galen into Syriac. These were laterJISHIM 2003, 221