AZ-ZAHRAWI: THE GREAT MUSLIM SURGEON
The 10th century saw the zenith of the Umayyad golden age in Andalusia. Under the leadership of ‘Abd ar-Rahman An-Nasir (r. 912-961) and his son Al-Hakam II, this dynasty established sovereignty over the majority of the Iberian Peninsula.
The capital Cordoba developed into Europe’s greatest metropolis, a thriving city of half a million, where educational and religious institutions as well as trade and industry flourished in an atmosphere of intellectual ferment.
Az-Zahrawi: The Great Muslim Surgeon - About Islam
In 936, An-Nasir began construction of a new capital, Az-Zahra, on the slopes of Al-Arus, a mountain six miles northwest of Cordoba. Intended mainly as a political and military center, the new city became a monument to 10th century Muslim architecture. Its magnificent palaces, residential quarters, and splendid gardens have led some historians to dub it the “Versailles of the Umayyads.”
UMAYYADS & SCIENCE
Az-Zahrawi: The Great Muslim Surgeon - About Islam
At the same time, the Andalusian Umayyads provided generous patronage to the arts and sciences, including life sciences. As a result, a large number of eminent physicians were drawn to the capital and added to the advance of Islamic medicine and pharmacy with their writings and research.
It was in this royal city amidst this atmosphere of intellectual achievement that Abu al-Qasim Khalaf bin Abbas Az-Zahrawi, known to the West by his Latin name Albucasis, was born about 938. He was simply the greatest Muslim surgeon, with European surgeons of his time coming to regard him as a greater authority than even Galen, the ancient world’s acknowledged master.
Medieval European surgical texts quoted Az-Zahrawi more often than Galen. However, because Az-Zahra, the city of his birth, was destroyed in 1011, little is known with certainty about his early life.
Al Humaydi’s Jadhwat al-Muqtabis (On Andalusian Savants) contains the first existing (albeit, sketchy) biography of this great Islamic physician, listing only his ancestry, place of residence, and approximate date of death.
WRITTEN WORK
What is known about Az-Zahrawi is contained in his only written work: At-Tasrif liman ‘Azija ‘an at-Ta’lif (The Method of Medicine). At-Tasrif is a voluminous compendium of 30 treatises compiled from medical data that Az-Zahrawi accumulated in a medical career that spanned five decades of teaching and medical practice.
In At-Tasrif, Az-Zahrawi produced a medical encyclopedia covering a number of aspects of medicine with particular emphasis on obstetrics, maternal and child health, and the anatomy and physiology of the human body.
Az-Zahrawi: The Great Muslim Surgeon - About Islam
At-Tasrif elaborates on the causes, symptoms and treatment of disease, and discusses the preparation of pharmaceuticals and therapeutics, covering emetic and cardiac drugs, laxatives, geriatrics, cosmetology, dietetics, materia medica, weight and measures, and drug substitution.
Az-Zahrawi’s discussion of mother and child health and the profession of midwifery is of particular interest in the history of nursing. His text implies that there was a flourishing profession of trained midwifes and nurses in existence during 10th century Andalusia. He and other skilled physicians and obstetricians instructed and trained midwives to carry on their duties with knowledge and confidence.
The last and largest volume of At-Tasrif, “On Surgery,” was nothing less than the greatest achievement of medieval surgery. It was the first independent surgical treatise ever.
Az-Zahrawi: The Great Muslim Surgeon - About Islam
THE MUSLIM SURGEON
The work covers a wide range of surgical issues including cautery, the treatment of wounds, the extraction of arrows, and the setting of bones in simple and compound fractures. Az-Zahrawi also promoted the use of antiseptics in wounds and skin injuries; devised sutures from animal intestines, silk, wool and other substances; and developed techniques to widen urinary passages and surgically explore body cavities.
Az-Zahrawi is the first to detail the classic operation for cancer of the breast, lithotrities for bladder stones, and techniques for removing thyroid cysts. He describes and illustrates obstetrical forceps, but only recommends their use with deceased fetuses, and provides the first known description of the obstetric posture now known as “Walcher’s position.”
At-Tasrif is also the first work in diagramming surgical instruments, detailing over two hundred of them, many of which Az-Zahrawi devised himself. Many of these instruments, with modifications, are still in use today.
With the reawakening of European interest in medical science, At-Tasrif quickly became a standard reference which they translated into Latin five times. The arrangement of the work, it’s clear diction, and its lucid explanations all contributed to its popularity and great success.
Az-Zahrawi’s influence on the course of European surgical development was deep and long lasting. Guy de Chauliac, the acknowledged “Restorer of European Surgery,” cites Az-Zahrawi more than 200 times.
THIS ARTICLE IS FROM OUR ARCHIVE, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON AN EARLIER DATE, AND HIGHLIGHTED NOW FOR ITS IMPORTANCE
SOURCE: https://aboutislam.net/muslim-issues/science-muslim-issues/az-zahrawi-great-surgeon/2/
ENDURING LEGACY OF MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC MEDICINE
As a role model to young Muslim generations, Muslim and non-Muslim scholars, during the era of the Islamic Caliphate, were known for their great achievements, enlightenment, elaborating the theories of the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Chinese, and Greeks.
They made groundbreaking medical discoveries as Europe went through the Dark Ages.
Those scholars had a wide-ranging interest in health and disease, and the Muslim doctors wrote extensively, developing complex literature on medication, clinical practice, ailments, cures, treatments, and diagnoses.
The scientists of the medieval Islamic World expertly gathered data and ordered it so that people could easily understand and reference information through various texts.
Science was obviously a subject of deep existence in the core of the medieval Islamic culture. Centers of learning grew out of famous mosques, and hospitals were often added at the same site.
Medieval Muslims were open-minded to the fact that Islam and science don’t contradict each other. The Islamic society across the medieval period believed that Allah is the provider of treatment for every illness, and at the same time they developed and enhanced their medical systems and practices with pure scientific elements.
This remarkable scope of the medieval Muslim communities was in sharp contrast to the medieval European Catholic thought which maintains that diseases were present to punish disbelievers and sinners, and thus, curing was against the will of God.
Outside Dark Europe, the Muslim biologists and doctors had interest in the scientific view of health, searching for causes of illness, possible treatments, and cures. The Muslim World produced some of the greatest medical thinkers in history to date.
PILLARS OF EXCELLENCE
Among the most prominent medieval Muslim doctors who made significant contributions to medicine was Ahmad ibn Abi al-Ash’ath, an Iraqi physician, who described how a full stomach dilates and contracts after experimenting on alive lions.
Another Iraqi physician was Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi who was also a historian, Egyptologist, and traveler, and lived from 1162 to 1231 AD.
After observing the remains of over 2,000 people, he concluded that the lower jaw, or mandible, consists of just one bone.
In the 10th century, Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili invented a hollow syringe that he used to remove cataracts by suction. Other medieval doctors of the Islamic World also performed eye surgeries to treat trachoma.
Cauterization was a common procedure, involving burning the skin to prevent infection and stem bleeding. A surgeon heated a metal rod and placed it on the wound to clot the blood and improve healing.
Female doctors were common in medieval Islamic medical practice, according to an article published in The Lancet in 2009. Some Muslim women from the families of famous physicians appear to have received elite medical training, and they treated both males and females.
This article is from our archive, originally published on an earlier date, and highlighted now for its importance
SOURCE: https://aboutislam.net/muslim-issues/science-muslim-issues/enduring-legacy-medieval-islamic-medicine/