Medicine in Islam explorer
Medicine Browser: Prophetic Medicine, Medicine, Anatomy, Surgery, Drugs and Treatment in Islam
Everything said and written about prophetic medicine, medicine, anatomy, surgery, drugs and the seeking of treatment in the museum's sources: the verses of healing, illness and the stages of human creation in the Qur'an; the reports of the Book of Medicine and the Book of the Sick in the two Sahihs, the Sunan and the Muwatta; the chapters on prophetic medicine in Zad al-Ma'ad; the reports of the Companions and the Successors on treatment, the care of the wounded and visiting the sick; passages of Ibn Sina's Canon, al-Razi's al-Hawi and Ibn al-Nafis's Commentary on the Anatomy of the Canon; and the records of physicians, hospitals, medical books, drugs and rulings — sourced records that grow as new texts land.
This build holds 2,052 records in 5 sections; the texts are drafts until a human reads them.
The browser's method
Every record here is an ordinary museum record, with its sources and its three-language prose. Medical texts are found at build time by a guarded lexicon over the passage texts, in the six topics of the title: prophetic medicine (cupping, cautery, ruqya, honey, black seed, costus, senna, talbina, truffles, 'ajwa dates, ithmid, ladud and sa'ut); medicine (the physician, illness and the sick, pain, fever, plague and epidemic, contagion, leprosy, named diseases, visiting the sick, the hospital); anatomy (the drop, the clot and the lump of flesh; the jugular vein, the aorta and the vessels; the joints; the organs); surgery (treating a wound, cauterising a vessel, venesection, circumcision, splints, bone-setting); drugs (the drug and the disease, poison and antidote, simples); and treatment (seeking treatment and cure, healing, treatment with what is forbidden). The ambiguous words are guarded: «في قلوبهم مرض» is left out; «الحمى» counts only as fever, never the protected pasture; «القسط» only in its drug compounds, never justice; «عسل» and «عجوة» only beside a medical word; «سم الخياط» is left out; the wound words count only with treatment, never with the legal compensation of wounds; and outside the Qur'an and the hadith reports a bare «مرض» or «شفاء» alone is not enough. Every book harvested later brings its medical texts here automatically when its passages land in the graph; curated records join through the tibb-browser tag with the tag of their topic. The museum describes what the sources say and attributes it; it gives no medical advice and no ruling.
The whole set is available at /api/v1/tibb.json
DraftWritten with AI help from the sources it cites, and not yet read by a human editor.
The browser's sections
The museum's records on medicine
The museum's curated records on medicine itself: prophetic medicine and its remedies; the physicians, men and women, from al-Harith ibn Kalada and Rufayda al-Aslamiyya to al-Razi, Ibn Sina, al-Zahrawi and Ibn al-Nafis; the hospitals; the medical books; anatomy, surgery and drugs; the plagues; and the rulings and fatwas on treatment.
- The Plague of Syria and Damietta, 826Draft
Medicine
826: a wasting plague through Syria — over 50,000 dead, it was said, within a few days — and a great plague at Damietta.
- The Plague of 838Draft
Medicine
Shadharat registers for 838 a general plague through Muslim and non-Muslim lands, killing innumerable multitudes.
- The Plague of 839Draft
Medicine
839's plague wave: four months at Bursa, then Oman, Herat — where the dead were reckoned at 800,000 — all Yemen, the Berber lands and Abyssinia.
- The Plague of 841Draft
Medicine
841: winter plague through Hama, Aleppo and Homs, reaching Damascus by winter's end then passing on to Egypt.
- The Great Plague of Gaza, Syria and Jerusalem, 864Draft
Medicine
In 864 a great plague struck Gaza, then Syria and Jerusalem, killing numbers beyond count.
- The General Plague of 897Draft
Medicine
Shadharat registers for 897 'the wondrous general plague, the like of which was unheard, till it was said a quarter of the earth's people died'.
- The Great Plague and FamineDraft
Medicine
The great plague-and-famine of 448–449: wheat at 90 then 180 dinars the kurr in Baghdad, a thousand deaths a day, the sultan shrouding 18,000 corpses at his own expense four and five to a bier; a Transoxianan merchants' …
- The Plague of Amwas
Medicine
In al-Baladhuri: the plague of Amwas came in year 18 and carried off a multitude of the Muslims, among them Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah — dying commander at fifty-eight — and Mu'adh ibn Jabal of Banu Salama of the Khazraj, …
- The Great Plague of BasraDraft
Medicine
In 258 plague spread from Ahwaz through Iraq to the gates of Fars: five to six hundred dead a day in Baghdad, and in Basra — already Zanj-besieged — the falls of sickness took more than twenty thousand.
- Smallpox and epidemic deaths, 422–425Draft
Medicine
The deaths ran on for four years. In 422 rain came late, bodies dried out, coughing and sickness multiplied, to the point that the sale of broth boomed. In 423 the epidemic spread over India, Ghazna, Khurasan, Jurjan and…
- Al-Razi's clinical comparison of smallpox and measles
Medicine
Monograph comparing shared symptoms/differences within humoral medicine, not invention of all diagnosis or vaccination.
- Ammar's described hollow cataract needle
Surgery
Hollow aspiration instrument described in Ammar's account;priority and outcomes presented as attributed claims,not museum verdict.
- Harun al-Rashid's Baghdad bimaristan
Medicine
TDV records that during his reign, 786–809, Harun al-Rashid summoned Jibril ibn Bukhtishu to Baghdad and commissioned a hospital on the Kerhaya canal on the model of Jundishapur, bringing Abu Yuhanna Masawayh to direct i…
- Ibn al-Baytar's comparative materia-medica method
Drugs
Attributed descriptions, names and observations compared in an alphabetical reference; an improvement within older traditions, not invention of botany or modern efficacy proof.
- Ibn Sina's seven conditions for assessing drug effects
Drugs
Conditions for interpreting drug effects in the Canon's humoral framework, not a modern clinical-trial protocol.
- Ibn Tulun's endowed civilian hospital
Medicine
Al-Maqrizi quotes the compiler of the Tulunid biography: Ahmad ibn Tulun built a hospital in 261 AH, endowed it with properties and excluded soldiers and mamluks. A patient's clothes and money were kept by the custodian;…
- Ibn Zuhr's animal demonstration of tracheotomy recovery
Surgery
Reported animal recovery investigating a surgical claim, not invention of tracheotomy or human trial proving general safety.
- Al-Kindi's calculation of compound-drug degrees
Drugs
A mathematical interpretation of inherited Galenic drug qualities: equal steps in degree correspond to a geometric increase in the ratio of opposing qualities, leading to a compound-drug calculation. A historical model, …
- Pulmonary circulation
Anatomy
In the thirteenth century the physician Ibn al-Nafis wrote, in his commentary on the anatomy of Ibn Sina's Canon, that blood does not cross from the right ventricle of the heart to the left through pores in the wall betw…
- Al-Razi's reported patient-group comparison
Medicine
A reported intentional treated/untreated comparison, record keeping and qualified uncertainty; not a modern randomized trial or proof of treatment effectiveness.
- Rufayda's tent for the wounded
Prophetic medicineMedicine
A tent belonging to the Companion Rufayda al-Ansariyya al-Aslamiyya, pitched in the Prophet's mosque in Medina, where she treated the wounded and gave herself to the care of Muslims in need. When Sa'd ibn Mu'adh was stru…
- Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik's bimaristan
Medicine
A house for the sick that al-Maqrizi says the Umayyad caliph al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik built in 88 AH, calling him the first to build a maristan in Islam: he placed physicians in it on paid allowances, ordered the lepers…
- Al-Zahrawi's differentiated dental scrapers
Surgery
Scrapers differentiated for inner, outer and interdental surfaces in chapter29: description and drawings, not proof of the first tooth cleaning or a modern clinical standard.
- Al-Zahrawi's intestinal-filament suturing account
Surgery
Animal-intestinal filaments described for intestinal suturing in al-Tasrif; Leclerc's translation explicitly retains an experimental qualification. A documented material contribution, not invention of all suturing or pro…
- Al-Zahrawi's urethral-stone drill
Surgery
A metal drill with a wooden handle described in surgical chapter60 of al-Tasrif for a stone obstructing the urethra, the urine passage beyond the bladder. Not bladder-stone forceps or a shock-wave machine; the record doc…
- Physician (tabib)
Medicine
The physician is the person who diagnoses and treats illness by the science of medicine. Muslims learned the craft by study, practice and apprenticeship to experienced physicians. In the Abbasid state a practitioner was …
- Muwaffaq al-Din Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi
Medicine
Muwaffaq al-Din Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi — the polymath physician, grammarian and philosopher, pupil of Ibn Fadlan, resident of Aleppo, author of sharhs on Ibn Babshad, the Maqamat and Bint Su'ad, a ten-volume Jami' on l…
- Abu Abdallah al-NatiliDraft
Medicine
Abu Abdallah al-Natili, the early eleventh-century philosopher and physician.
- Abu al-Ala Zuhr ibn Abd al-Malik
Medicine
Abu al-Ala Zuhr ibn Abd al-Malik al-Iyadi of Seville — physician of al-Andalus and author, who took from his father and transmitted from Abu Ali al-Ghassani; he won broad fortune and great leadership with fine poetry bef…
- The sage Abu al-Hakam al-MaghribiDraft
Medicine
The travelling Andalusi physician Abu'l-Hakam al-Maghribi who served Sultan Mahmud b. Malikshah and built him a camp hospital carried on forty camels; he died at Damascus in 549 leaving a satirical diwan of Damascene poe…
- Abu al-Salt al-Andalusi
Drugs
Abu al-Salt Umayya al-Dani — Andalusi physician, astronomer and poet; reached Alexandria in 489, was exiled by al-Afdal Shahanshah in 505, and wrote his astrolabe treatise, the Wajiz on astronomy, the book of simple drug…
- Ahmad al-DamanhuriDraft
Medicine
Ahmad al-Damanhuri, the eighteenth-century Grand Imam of al-Azhar, physician and jurist, d. 1778.
- Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar, shaykh of medicine
Medicine
al-Muhadhdhib al-Dakhwar — Damascus's shaykh of medicine, pupil of Ibn al-Matran and al-Radi al-Rahbi, who endowed the physicians' madrasa at the old goldsmiths' quarter; his income ran to 150 dinars a month plus an iqta…
- al-Hakim al-MunajjimDraft
Medicine
Al-Hakim al-Munajjim, the twelfth-century Nizari da'i, physician and astrologer, d. 1103.
- al-Harith ibn KaladaDraft
Medicine
the famed physician of the Arabs; ate the poisoned khazira with Abu Bakr — 'a year's poison is in it, we die in one day' — and both died in one day at year's end.
- Abu al-Fath al-Karajiki Muhammad ibn AliDraft
Medicine
Abu al-Fath al-Karajiki (al-Khaymi) Muhammad b. Ali — head of the Shi'a and an author, physician, mutakallim and polymath among al-Sharif al-Murtada's leading pupils; author of *Talqin awlad al-mu'minin*; died at Tyre in…
- al-Khunaji Afdal al-Din Muhammad
Medicine
Scholar of medicine, philosophy and logic of Persian origin; born 590 AH (1194 CE) and died 646 AH (1248 CE).
- Al-Mudhaffar al-Himsi
Medicine
A physician and man of letters born in Homs.
- al-Muhadhdhab ibn Muqbil, the physicianDraft
Medicine
Mosul's celebrated physician — 'most learned of his age in medicine', a transmitter of hadith, generous and well-mannered, author of a good medical work — died Muharram 610.
- al-Nadir ibn al-Harith al-Thaqafi
Medicine
A prominent Thaqafi physician-nobleman and son of the famed physician al-Harith ibn Kalada; allied to Banu Abd al-Dar, he embraced Islam and was granted one hundred camels by the Prophet at al-Ji'rana among al-Mu'allafa …
- Abu Bakr al-Razi
Medicine
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, known to the Latins as Rhazes, was a physician, philosopher and alchemist born in Rayy, who lived from about 250/854 to 313/925, or 323/935 by another reckoning. He headed the hosp…
- al-Rubayyi' bint Mu'awwidh
MedicineSurgery
A Companion of Banu Adi ibn al-Najjar; she gave the pledge under the tree, narrated that women campaigned with the Prophet giving water, serving and tending the wounded, described his ablution, and told of her wedding da…
- al-Shaykh al-Sadid
Medicine
Al-Shaykh al-Sadidi Sharaf al-Din Abdallah b. Ali, head of medicine in Egypt; trained under al-Muwaffaq Ibn al-Matin and served al-Adid, winning wide honour and a long life; among his pupils Nafis al-Din Ibn al-Zubayr. I…
- al-Samaw'al al-MaghribiDraft
Medicine
Al-Samaw'al ibn Yahya al-Maghribi, the mathematician and physician who embraced Islam and wrote Ifham al-Yahud and al-Bahir in algebra, d. 1180.
- Şeyhi
MedicineSurgery
Şeyhi (Yusuf Sinan, d. 1431), divan poet and eye-physician of Kütahya, counted among the founders of classical Turkish literature. Trained at Kütahya and in Iran, he served the Germiyan bey Yakub II as companion and pers…
- al-Shifa' bint Abdullah
Prophetic medicineMedicine
One of the first emigrants, she embraced Islam before the Hijra and gave her pledge; counted among the wise and virtuous of women, the Prophet visited her and took his midday rest at her house, she taught Hafsa to write,…
- al-Tiflisi Jamal al-Din Abu al-Fadl Habash ibn Ibrahim
Medicine
Physician, astrologer, lexicographer and man of letters from Tiflis, who served the Seljuks in medicine and astronomy and wrote mostly in Persian; died 629 AH (1231 CE).
- Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi
Surgery
Andalusian physician and surgeon associated with Cordoba, author of the30-book al-Tasrif completed around390/1000, whose final book illustrates surgery and instruments. Early biographical evidence is sparse; court servic…
- al-Zayn al-Hafizi, the physician
Medicine
Physician to the lord of Ja'bar, then al-Nasir Yusuf's intimate — sent as envoy to the Tatars he went over to them and Hulagu amir'ed him; 'he became a Tatar, a traitor to the Muslims' — until his patron had him killed f…
- Ali ibn al-Abbas al-MajusiDraft
Medicine
Persian physician from Ahvaz, author of the Kamil al-Sina'a al-Tibbiyya, known to the Latins as the Liber regius.
- Ali ibn RidwanDraft
Medicine
Egyptian physician of Cairo in the fifth century AH, author of medical commentaries and treatises.
- Ali Ibn Sahl Al TabariDraft
Medicine
Ali ibn Sahl al-Tabari — author of Firdaws al-Hikma, Islamised at al-Mu'tasim's hand
- Amin al-Dawla al-Samiri
Medicine
Al-Salih Ayyub's vizier — a Samaritan of Baalbek converted and made his minister, physician and chancery-master; when Turanshah's men seized him they reckoned his holdings at twelve million dinars; beheaded, burned, left…
- Emir CelebiDraft
Medicine
Emir Celebi, the Ottoman physician and writer, d. 1638.
- Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili
MedicineSurgery
Mosul-born eye physician active in Egypt,author of al-Muntakhab;reported making a hollow needle,with priority/success claims remaining attributed.
- Akşemseddin
Medicine
Akşemseddin (792/1389–1459), born Şemseddin Muhammed b. Hamza at Damascus, was an Ottoman scholar, Sufi and physician: the disciple and khalifa of Haci Bayram Veli and founder of the Shamsiyya branch of the Bayramiyya, t…
- Asad ibn al-Matran
Medicine
Al-Muwaffaq As'ad b. al-Matran the physician, a Christian who embraced Islam; abundant in chivalry, fine of character, an intercessor for people with the sultan, loyal to the Prophet's house — he loved a lad named Umar, …
- Bukhtishu ibn Jibril
Medicine
A physician of the Bukhtishu medical family in the Abbasid period, close to the caliph al-Muhtadi. He was succeeded by his son Ubayd Allah.
- Hippocrates
Medicine
Hippocrates — per Mas'udi, love is two souls fused like water in water; its tremor, pallor and stammer run from the heart outward.
- Cinci Huseyin EfendiDraft
Medicine
Cinci Huseyin Efendi, the seventeenth-century Ottoman physician and writer, d. 1648.
- Dawud al-Antaki
Medicine
An Arab physician from Antioch, nicknamed al-Darir because he was blind. He lived in the tenth century AH. Ibn al-'Imad gives his obituary among the late tenth-century deaths in Shadharat al-Dhahab.
- Dhimad al-AzdiDraft
Prophetic medicineMedicine
An Azdi physician and traditional healer from Azd Shanu'a who arrived in Mecca and offered to treat the Prophet Muhammad after hearing claims that he was mad; upon hearing the Prophet's Khutbat al-Hajah, he declared Isla…
- Geredeli IshakDraft
Medicine
Geredeli Ishak, the fifteenth-century Ottoman physician.
- Hacı Pasha
Medicine
Khidr “Haji Pasha” al-Aydini (d. 820/1417), physician-theologian, author of Shifa' al-Asqam.
- Hakim Abdul Hameed
Medicine
Hakim Abdul Hameed (1908–1999) was an Indian physician of the Unani system of medicine, founder and chief trustee of Hamdard Laboratories, founder chancellor of Jamia Hamdard, and chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University …
- Hakim Ajmal Khan
Medicine
Indian Unani physician of Delhi (1868–1927), from a family of physicians who had served the Mughal court, honoured as Masih-ul-Mulk, 'Healer of the Nation'. He founded the Tibbia College in Delhi, was a founder of Jamia …
- Hakim Ghulam Nabi
Medicine
Hakim Ghulam Nabi (d. 1916) was an Indian Unani physician of Lahore who wrote some forty medical books in Urdu and published a medical journal; he was a friend of Muhammad Iqbal and treated the rulers of Nabha and Khairp…
- Hakim Nabina Ansari
Medicine
Hakim Abdul Wahhab Ansari (1868–1941), known as Hakim Nabina Ansari, was an Indian Unani physician blinded in childhood who became famous for diagnosis by pulse; he studied at Darul Uloom Deoband, took bay'ah with Rashid…
- Hakim Muhammad Said
Medicine
Hakim Muhammad Said (9 January 1920 – 17 October 1998) was a Pakistani physician, researcher and institution-builder, born at Delhi into an educated, religious Urdu-speaking family, who re-established the Hamdard Laborat…
- Hamna bint Jahsh
MedicineSurgery
Sister of Zaynab bint Jahsh, wife of Mus'ab ibn Umayr, who was killed at Uhud, and then of Talha ibn Ubaydullah; she was at Uhud giving water to the thirsty and tending the wounded, and she narrated the hadith on abnorma…
- Hayatizade Mehmed Emin EfendiDraft
Medicine
Hayatizade Mehmed Emin Efendi, the Ottoman jurist and physician, d. 1747.
- Hayatizade Mustafa FeyziDraft
Medicine
Hayatizade Mustafa Feyzi, the senior Ottoman physician, d. 1692.
- Hunayn ibn Ishaq
Medicine
Al-Wathiq's physician — his lecture on the thirty-two teeth earned a book commission, and his answers on air-altering factors became Kitab al-Masa'il al-Tabi'iyya.
- Hussam al-Din al-JarrahiDraft
Medicine
Hussam al-Din al-Jarrahi, the twelfth-century emir and personal physician of Saladin, d. 1202.
- Ibn Abi Usaybi'aDraft
Medicine
Physician and historian of medicine, author of the Uyun al-anba fi tabaqat al-atibba, a principal source on physicians.
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