Islamic Medicine

Muslim medicine has always been in contact with other medical systems through translations of medical treatises. The translation movement has worked in both directions; that is, both to and from Muslim languages. Muslim Galenic medicine owed much of its origin to a massive move to translate from Greek to Arabic in the ninth century. This was part of the general introduction of Hellenic culture and science into the Muslim world. Most of the translations were done via mediator languages, mostly Syriac and to some extent Persian. Translators, many of whom were Christians (such as the famous Husayn ibn Ishaq), enjoyed caliphal patronage. Al-Ma'mun (reigned 813–833) should be given special mention for sponsoring the great library of Baghdad, Bayt al-Hikma (literally, "House of Wisdom"), which was the center of intellectual activity at the time. Although we associate the Age of Translation with Hellenic medicine, during the ninth century traditional Indian medicine (Ayurveda) was translated into Arabic as well, either directly from Sanskrit or by way of Persian. In the long run, however, it was Hellenic medicine that became dominant in the caliphal court.

Muslim doctors were the custodians of Hellenic medicine, which they expanded, corrected, systemized, and summarized (for example, in the fields of pharmacology, ophthalmology, pathology, and many others). In anatomy, for example, Ibn al-Nafis (d. 1288) is credited with describing the circulation of blood in the lungs for the first time. He formulated this description through logical deduction rather than clinical observation. Many Muslim medical texts were translated into European languages during the later Middle Ages. Thus many Muslim physicians became known to Europe, as well as otherwise "lost" texts from antiquity. Figures like Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (d. 925), Abu Qasim al-Zahrawi (d. 1013), and Ibn Sina (d. 1037) were famous in Europe by the Latinized form of their names (Rhazes, Albucasis, and Avicenna, respectively), and their treatises became standard medical texts well into the eighteenth century.

In the early modern period another move to translate medical texts occurred, again from European to Muslim languages. This time nonhumoral concepts were introduced to Muslim medicine. A prime example of a physician who applied the concepts of European medicine is Salih ibn Sallum, from Aleppo (d. 1670), the head physician of the Ottoman Empire, who was influenced by Paracelsus (d. 1541), the German-speaking physician who was the first to treat patients with chemical rather than botanic or natural medications. Ibn Sallum's work in Arabic was soon translated into Ottoman Turkish. Translation of European texts accelerated in the following centuries, especially during the nineteenth century, when many European texts were translated into Muslim languages as part of the move from traditional medicine to Western biomedicine.