This highly readable survey describes the development of Islamic medicine and its influence on Western medical thought. It explains the main features of Islamic medicine: its system of human physiology; its ideas about the nature of disease; its rules for diet and the use of drugs; and its relationship with astrology and the occult.

Originally published in 1986, this volume deals with the historical, philosophical and psychological concepts found in Islamic medical practices, and covers Islamic ideas on physiological, pathological, curative and preventative medicine. This was the first systematic study of Islamic medicine to be published in the English language and continues to have much relevance at a time when interest both in Islamic thought and in alternatives to conventional medicine is strong.

An up-to-date survey of medieval Islamic medicine offering new insights to the role of medicine and physicians in medieval Islamic culture.

It is the aim of this book while clarifying doubts and misconceptions, to provide a thorough reappraisal of the intellectual and rich cultural heritage of Islam with regards to the principles and practice of medicine and its representation to the world in the language of today. In nine chapters a range of topics are discussed including: The Promotion of Medical Education and Health Services; Personal and Environmental Hygiene; Circumcision; Manners of Eating; Social and Mental Heath; Curative Medicine; The Provision of Adequate and Potable Water; Magic, Witchcraft, Enchantments and Charms; Euthanasia; Suicide; The Rehabilitation of the Sick and the Needy; The Source of Human Creation; Sex Differentiation and Determination; Healing through Miracles; Magic and Soothsaying; HIV Infection and AIDS; Abortion; Females in Medical Practice; and The Challenges of Modem Medicine to Muslims.

Medicine and Shariah brings together experts from various fields, including clinicians, Islamic studies experts, and Muslim theologians, to analyze the interaction of the doctors and jurists who are forging the field of Islamic bioethics. Although much ink has been spilled in generating Islamic responses to bioethical questions and in analyzing fatwas, Islamic bioethics still remains an emerging field. How are Islamic bioethical norms to be generated? Are Islamic bioethical writings to be considered as part of the broader academic discourse in bioethics? What even is the scope of Islamic bioethics? Taking up these and related questions, the essays in Medicine and Shariah provide the groundwork for a more robust field. The volume begins by furnishing concepts and terms needed to map out the discourse. It concludes by offering a multidisciplinary model for ethical deliberation that accounts for the various disciplines needed to derive Islamic moral norms and to understand biomedical contexts. In between these bookends, contributors apply various analytic, empirical, and normative lenses to examine the interaction between biomedical knowledge (represented by physicians) and Islamic law (represented by jurists) in Islamic bioethical deliberation. By providing a multidisciplinary model for generating Islamic bioethics rulings, Medicine and Shariah provides the critical foundations for an Islamic bioethics that better attends to specific biomedical contexts and also accurately reflects the moral vision of Islam. The volume will be essential reading for bioethicists and scholars of Islam; for those interested in the dialectics of tradition, modernity, science, and religion; and more broadly for scholarly and professional communities that work at the intersection of the Islamic tradition and contemporary healthcare. Contributors: Ebrahim Moosa, Aasim I. Padela, Vardit Rispler-Chaim, Abul Fadl Mohsin Ebrahim, Muhammed Volkan Yildiran Stodolsky, Mohammed Amin Kholwadia, Hooman Keshavarzi, and Bilal Ali.

This book - now available in paperback - was originally written in the early 11th century by Abu al-Faraj 'Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Hindu (d. 423/1032), a physician who was also the author of a treatise on philosophy, and who was famous for his Arabic poetry (his anthology is said to have amounted to 15,000 couplets or more). For a medieval work, which was written as an introduction to medicine intended for students, the book is refreshingly meticulous in its analysis and is modern in its outlook. It discusses the various disciplines that a medical student should have been familiar with, including a lengthy digression into philosophy and logic. It then deals with matters specifically medical, devoting separate sections to anatomy, diseases, pulse, and names of medicinal substances.