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.
- Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, Ahmad ibn al-Qasim
Medicine
A physician and historian of medicine from a Damascene family, author of ʿUyun al-Anba' fi Tabaqat al-Atibba'.
- Ibn al-Baddhukh, Umar ibn Ali
MedicineDrugs
A Moroccan physician and pharmacist, expert in simple and compound drugs and their preparation, who also wrote poetry.
- Ibn al-Baytar
MedicineDrugs
The Malagan physician-botanist (d. Sha'ban 646, Damascus) — author of the Mufradat materia medica; in him the knowledge of plants, their properties, benefits and habitats terminated; served al-Kamil then al-Salih and hea…
- Ibn al-BaytarDraft
MedicineDrugs
Ibn al-Baytar, the peerless physician and herbalist of Malaga, author of the Mufradat of simples — knowledge of plants, their properties, virtues and habitats ended with him; he served al-Kamil then his son al-Salih and …
- Ibn al-Bitar Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Ahmad
MedicineDrugs
Scholar of plants, drugs and medicine from Malaga in al-Andalus; died 646 AH (1248 CE).
- Ibn al-Dallaj
Medicine
Abd al-Wahid Ibn al-Dallaj (d. 1099/1688), Maghribi physician and medical writer.
- Ibn al-Hashsha Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Muhammad
Medicine
Physician who lived in Tunis in the first half of the seventh century AH; died 647 AH (1249 CE).
- Ibn al-Jazzar, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim
Medicine
A physician from Kairouan, one of the leading physicians of his time, who wrote on medicine and drugs.
- Ibn al-Nafis
MedicineAnatomy
Shaykh of medicine in Egypt — 'nothing like him on earth, nor since Ibn Sina, and greater than him in treatment'; al-Shamil was projected at 300 volumes of which he fair-copied eighty, all dictated from memory; endowed h…
- Ibn al-Qawba'
Medicine
Muhammad Ibn al-Qawba' al-Ja'fari (1266–1338), Tunisian Maliki jurist, physician and poet settled at Cairo.
- Amin al-Dawla Ibn al-Tilmidh
Medicine
Amin al-Dawla Ibn al-Tilmidh (d. Safar 560, near age 100) — Baghdad's Christian physician-in-chief, head of its Christian community; al-Imad called him 'sultan of the hakims, the seal of medicine'; author of the Aqrabadh…
- Ibn Bariq Abu Hafs
Medicine
Andalusi physician of the fourth century AH who studied medicine in Qayrawan with Ibn al-Jazzar and returned to al-Andalus with his teacher's book on medicine and remedies.
- Ibn HinduDraft
Medicine
Abu'l-Faraj Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Hindu, the eleventh-century physician and man of letters of Rayy, d. 1019.
- Ibn Hudhayl, Yahya ibn Ahmad
Medicine
A physician and mathematician from Granada, linked to the Tujib tribe.
- Ibn Jazla
Medicine
Abu Ali Yahya b. Isa b. Jazla of Asyut — physician who converted from Christianity and wrote a refutation of Christians; student of Ibn Ridwan; authored Taqwim al-Abdan, Minhaj al-Bayan and a defence of medicine for al-M…
- Ibn Rushd al-Hafid (Averroes)
Medicine
Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd of Cordoba, Ibn Rushd al-Hafid, was a judge of Cordoba, a Maliki jurist, a physician and a philosopher, known in the West as Averroes and the Commentator of Aristotle. According …
- Ibn Sina (Avicenna)Draft
Medicine
Persian physician and philosopher, born in 370/980 near Bukhara and died at Hamadan in 428/1037, who served several courts as physician and minister. His Canon of Medicine taught medicine in Europe and the Islamic world …
- Ibn Tayfur al-TabibDraft
Medicine
Al-Muntasir's physician; the Turks slipped him thirty thousand dinars in the caliph's illness — he counselled phlebotomy then bled him with a poisoned feather, and he died; or he himself sickened, sent his servant, who b…
- Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar)
Medicine
Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr (1094–1162), known in Latin as Avenzoar, a Sevillian physician and poet of the Banu Zuhr, a family that produced six generations of physicians. He learnt medicine from his father Abu al-A…
- Ibn Zuhr al-HafidDraft
Medicine
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr of Seville, among the foremost physicians and men of letters in al-Andalus; he served the Almoravid and Almohad states and had no equal in medicine in his day, having learnt it…
- Ibrahim ibn AbdullahDraft
Medicine
Ibrahim ibn Abdullah, the Ottoman writer (physician, sixteenth century).
- Ibrahim ibn Thabit ibn QurraDraft
Medicine
Ibrahim b. Thabit b. Qurra — Harranian physician who reached his father's rank; treated the poet Abu al-Sari al-Rafa', who praised him as the sick man's only healer after God.
- Ibrahim ibn Yahya al-Ansari al-Mursi
Medicine
The grammarian, reciter and physician Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Yahya al-Ansari al-Mursi, from Murcia and active at Granada under the Nasrid state; the sources on him are few.
- Ilyas al-Qarmani, physician of Damascus
Medicine
Ilyas al-Qarmani — Damascus physician 'imam of his age'; versified the materia medica as 'Nazrat al-A'yan fi Ma'rifat al-Adwiya,' treated people without fee, and inveighed against excess in food and drink; killed in Dhu'…
- Ishaq Ibn HunaynDraft
Medicine
Ishaq ibn Hunayn — surpassed his father in Arabic eloquence; author of the History of Physicians; d. 298
- Jibril ibn Bukhtishu ibn Jirjis
Medicine
A physician who studied at the hospital of Gundishapur and served the caliphs including al-Rashid. He was born and lived in Gundishapur.
- KaysunizadeDraft
Medicine
Kaysunizade, the Ottoman physician and hekimbaşı, d. 1568.
- Ku'ayba bint Sa'dDraft
MedicineSurgery
An Aslami Companion among the women nurses who tended the wounded Muslims after the Battle of Uhud; she treated a man struck by an arrow in the arm until he recovered.
- Madyan al-Qusuni
Medicine
Madyan al-Qusuni (1562–after 1634), chief physician of Egypt, littérateur and historian of physicians.
- Magdi Yacoub
Medicine
Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub (born 16 November 1935 in Bilbeis, Egypt) is an Egyptian-British heart surgeon and professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Imperial College London; he established the heart transplantation programme…
- Maimonides (Ibn Maymun)Draft
Medicine
Abu Imran Musa ibn Ubayd Allah ibn Maymun al-Qurtubi, known in the West as Moses Maimonides, was a Jewish theologian, philosopher and physician, born in Cordova in 1135 and died in Fustat in 1204. His family left al-Anda…
- Mansur ibn IlyasDraft
Medicine
Mansur ibn Ilyas, the fifteenth-century Persian physician author of Tashrih-i Badan-i Insan, the first coloured anatomical atlas.
- MasarjawayhDraft
Medicine
طبيب ترجم للخليفة عمر بن عبد العزيز كتاباً في الطب، بحسب ما ينقله الكتاب عن القفطي، في سياق بدايات حركة الترجمة في العصر الأموي.
- Muhammad al-RiqutiDraft
Medicine
Muhammad al-Riquti of Murcia, among the most learned Andalusis in the ancient sciences — logic, geometry, arithmetic, music and medicine; when the Christian king took Murcia he recognised his worth and built him a school…
- Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Andarshi al-Balansi
Medicine
The jurist and physician Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Andarshi al-Balansi, who died at Tunis in 674 AH and wrote a versified medical poem and a verse work on simple drugs.
- Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Mutatabbib
Medicine
Personal physician to the Ottoman sultan Ahmad I, who ascended the throne in 1603.
- Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-ShirwaniDraft
Medicine
Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-Shirwani, the Ottoman physician and writer, d. 1451.
- Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi
Medicine
Qutb al-Din Mahmud ibn Ziya al-Din Mas'ud ibn Muslih al-Shirazi (October 1236 - 1311) was a Persian polymath who contributed to astronomy, mathematics, medicine, physics, music theory, philosophy and Sufism. He came from…
- Rufayda al-AslamiyyaDraft
Prophetic medicineMedicineSurgery
An Ansari Companion of Banu Aslam remembered for her medical tent pitched in the Prophet's mosque; the wounded Sa'd ibn Mu'adh was placed under her care after he was struck by an arrow at the Battle of the Trench, and sh…
- Sabur Ibn SahlDraft
Medicine
Sabur ibn Sahl — head of the Jundishapur hospital, author of the dispensatory used in every bimaristan
- Salah al-Din ibn Yusuf al-Kahhal
MedicineSurgery
A physician from the last generation of Arab physicians, raised in Aleppo.
- Salma al-QabilaDraft
Medicine
A Companion, wife of Abu Rafi' the Prophet's freedman; she was the household midwife who delivered Fatima's children — al-Hasan, al-Husayn, Zaynab and Umm Kulthum — having earlier served Khadija, and lived on after the P…
- Sharaf al-Din ibn al-RahbiDraft
Medicine
Sharaf al-Din ibn al-Rahbi, the thirteenth-century physician and literary scholar, d. 1268.
- Sinan Ibn ThabitDraft
Medicine
Harranian physician (d. 331) — al-Qahir pressed him to convert; he fled, converted, and died Muslim in Baghdad
- Syed Modasser Ali
MedicineSurgery
Bangladeshi ophthalmic surgeon and pioneer of community ophthalmology, born in Gopalganj in 1946. He founded Mojibunnessa Eye Hospital, the first registered eye hospital in Bangladesh, and was founding editor-in-chief of…
- Taqi al-Din Shabib, poet-oculist
MedicineSurgery
الأديب البارع الشاعر المفلق الطبيب الكحال، أخو نجم الدين أحمد بن حمدان بن شبيب الحراني؛ عارض «بانت سعاد» بقصيدة عظيمة مطلعها: مجدٌ كبا الوهمُ عن إدراك غايته وردّ عقلَ البرايا وهو معقول.
- Tawhida Ben Cheikh
Medicine
Tunisian physician (1909–2010), the first Tunisian girl to take the baccalauréat, in 1928, and the first woman physician of Tunisia and the Maghreb. She graduated from the Paris faculty of medicine in 1936 and opened a p…
- Ubayd Allah ibn Jibril
Medicine
A physician, researcher and historian of medicine, knowledgeable about the Christian communities and their doctrines. He belonged to the Bukhtishu family of physicians.
- al-Ashraf Umar ibn al-Muzaffar, al-Ghassani
Medicine
A Yemeni ruler of the Rasulid line who wrote on the astrolabe, veterinary medicine and simple drugs, drawing on Ibn al-Baytar and al-Zahrawi.
- Umm Sinan al-Aslamiyya
MedicineSurgery
A Companion of Aslam who went out with the Prophet to Khaybar to stitch water-skins and tend the sick and wounded; she stayed with Umm Salama and witnessed the conquest of Khaybar, and her daughter Thubayta bint Hanzala …
- Usama ibn SharikDraft
Prophetic medicineTreatment
A Companion from the Banu Tha'laba. Authors of the Sunan collections, Ahmad, Ibn Khuzayma, Ibn Hibban and al-Hakim narrated his report, which includes the instruction to seek treatment, since God has not sent a disease w…
- Yahya Ibn Sarafiyun
Medicine
Yahya ibn Sarafiyun — Serapion, whose two Kunnash were Englished into Arabic
- Yuhanna Ibn MasawayhDraft
Medicine
Yuhanna b. Masawayh — reported among those sent to Byzantium
- Yusuf ibn Haydara al-Rakhi
Medicine
Yusuf b. Haydara al-Rakhi (d. Ashura 631, aged 97) — dean of medicine in Syria, one of Salah al-Din's physicians; his pupils — among them al-Dakhwar — ran the country's medicine; he died with hearing and sight intact.
- Zafir ibn Jabir al-Sukkari
Medicine
Abu Hakim Zafir ibn Jabir ibn Mansur al-Sukkari, a physician of Mosul who moved to Aleppo and stayed there for the rest of his life; he wrote an epistle on why animals die although food replaces what dissolves from them,…
- Ziyad ibn Khalfun
Medicine
A physician of Kairouan, a client of the Aghlabids, about whose origins little is known.
- Zubaida Sirang
MedicineSurgery
Pakistani eye surgeon from Yarkhun, Chitral, the first female eye surgeon from her region. She took her MBBS at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, served in her hometown before specialising in Ireland, and returned in 2…
- The 'attar (perfumer and druggist)
Drugs
Originally a dealer in perfumes and drugs, the 'attar came to mean a chemist and herbal practitioner. His trade combined commerce with medicine: he had to know the drugs, their good and bad varieties, what was adulterate…
- Male circumcisionDraft
Surgery
Male circumcision; counted among the fitra by jurists and a firmly rooted practice in law and custom, with ages and celebrations varying by country.
- What is khitan?Draft
Surgery
Circumcision is the removal of the male foreskin. Jurists count it among the practices of the natural disposition (fitra), and it is an established custom in both religious law and local custom, whose forms vary between …
- Who was Ibn Sina?Draft
Medicine
Ibn Sina (980–1037), a philosopher and physician, is the author of The Canon of Medicine, a Western reference for centuries, and of al-Shifa' in philosophy; one of the greatest minds in history.
- Who was al-Razi?Draft
Medicine
Abu Bakr al-Razi (865–925), a Persian physician; head of the hospital of Baghdad and author of al-Hawi. His description of smallpox and measles was the first precise clinical description.
- Al-Hawi fi al-TibbDraft
Medicine
Abu Bakr al-Razi's large medical work. The volume read here has three parts: diseases of the head, of the eye, and of the ear, nose and teeth; the first part begins with diseases of the head.
- al-Mufradat fi'l-Adwiya wal-AghdhiyaDraft
Drugs
Ibn al-Baytar's Mufradat of simples — the work through which knowledge of plants, their properties, virtues and habitats reached its summit.
- Al-Muhadhdhab fi al-Kuhl al-MujarrabDraft
MedicineSurgery
Al-Muhadhdhab fi al-Kuhl al-Mujarrab.
- The Canon of MedicineDraft
Medicine
Ibn Sina's encyclopaedia of medicine, divided by the author into five books: general principles, simple drugs, diseases of the organs one by one, diseases not confined to one organ with beauty care, and compound drugs. T…
- Al-ShamilDraft
Medicine
Al-Shamil.
- Ibn al-Sunni's al-Tibb al-nabawi
Prophetic medicine
A book on Prophetic Medicine by Ibn al-Sunni (d. 364 AH), among the earliest of its genre, quoted by al-Suyuti in al-Hay'a al-saniyya.
- Al-Tibb al-Nabawi (Ibn Qayyim)Draft
Prophetic medicine
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's al-Tibb al-Nabawi, on prophetic medicine and health.
- A charity using zakat to treat patients
Treatment
A question about a charity taking zakat to treat patients, buy medicines and equipment and fund health projects, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that zakat may not be spent on buying medicines, equipm…
- A new Muslim who is afraid of circumcision
SurgeryTreatment
A question about a new Muslim who is afraid of circumcision, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that he is not required to be circumcised if a trustworthy doctor says it would harm him, and if it is only…
- Bequeathing one's organs after death
Treatment
A question from an organ-donation awareness initiative about a person bequeathing all his organs for donation after death, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that donating organs after death to relieve h…
- Bone and tissue grafts from a dead human or an animal in dental implants
SurgeryTreatment
A question about using bone and tissue taken from a dead human, from cattle or from pigs in dental implants and gum treatment, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that treatment with impure substances and…
- Compensating a patient for a doctor's mistake
Treatment
A question about compensating a patient for a doctor's mistake, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that a doctor is liable for harm caused by his negligence or ignorance, and not liable if he took full c…
- Using cow blood to make a medical preparation
DrugsTreatment
A question about using cow blood to make a medical preparation, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that blood is impure and that preparations containing it may not be used unless no pure medicine can rep…
No matches.