Medicine in Islam and Islamic Medicine

Ebrahimnejad, Hormoz (2018) Medicine in Islam and Islamic Medicine. In, Jackson, Mark (ed.) A Global History of Medicine. Oxford. Oxford University Press, pp. 69-94.

Abstract

The term "Islamic medicine" is coind by the modern historiography and suggests a homogeneous system, whereas "medicine in Islam" was a wide range of practices and theories from humoral to folk practice and magic healing. For two reasons, however, we might call this medicine "Islamic": firstly because it was developed under the Islamic rulers's patronage; and secondly, because it was part of the intellectual process of the formation of Islam itself, in which religion and science were associated. Medical histories produced since the nineteenth century have not delved into the intellectual and sociopolitical factors behind the choice of the term "Islamic". The aim of this chapter is not to provide a history of "Islamic medicine", but to examine the key developments that led to its formation, by addressing its theoretical, practical, and institutional features and the ways in which these features were formed and developed in relation to both pre-Islamic and Islamic resources.

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