Medicine in Islam’s “Golden Age”

By Charlie Baker and Rachel Mitchell

Medicine• Considered as a branch of both science and art,

medicine focuses on maintaining body stability as well as the prevention, relief, and cure of disease.

• Muslims were interested in medicine because of its usefulness

• Muhammad stated that there was a cure for every illness, and understood that some illnesses were contagious

Role in the Islamic Empire• The Qu’ran instructed that the healthy take care of the

sick. This lead the wealthy and powerful contributing money to the construction of local hospitals.

• Supported by the central government, advances in the field of medicine included the preservation of earlier texts. These texts authored by Greeks such as Galen and Hippocrates were used to teach doctors during their training.

• There was an emphasis on healing the sick through Islam.

Influence on Other Cultures

• Influenced by and built on Greek medical texts

• In the Abbasid Era, Hospitals were built throughout Muslim Lands

• Muslims had a vast effect on Middle Age Europe in the medical field

• Richard the Lionhearted

preferred Muslim physicians

Medicinal Influence Today

• The medicinal knowledge obtained by the Muslims in the Umayyad and Abbasid eras affects today’s society because the Europeans were majorly influenced by the Islamic works. We were influenced by the Europeans, so we ended up getting some of the Islamic ideas.

• Islamic medicine provided the basis for many surgical procedures, surgical instruments, and basic knowledge that later doctors used to develop medicine into what it has become today.

Bibliography• http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medicine

• http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/islamic_medical/islamic_12.html

• http://www.islamcity.com/Mosque/ihame/Ref4.htm

• http://www.sfusd.edu/schwww/sch618/Medicine/Medicine_and_Health.html

http://www.islam-usa.com/im4.html

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/islamic_medical/islamic_02.html

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/islamic_medical/islamic_12.html

http://www.islam-usa.com/im3.html