1001 Cures; Contributions in Medicine & Healthcare from Muslim Civilisation 

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Similar manuscripts of work on anatomy contained illustrated chapters on five systems of the body: bones, nerves, muscles, veins and arteries. This page depicts the arteries, with the internal organs shown in watercolors...

A miniature page of al-Firdawsî's Shahnama indicating the birth of Rustam. Source: Topkapi Palace Library, MS H 1479. Source: http://muslimheritage.com/article/caesarean-section-early-islamic-literature

13th-century manuscript showing a Greek translation of the medical handbook by Ibn al-Jazzār entitled Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary (Zād al-Musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir), known in Greek as Ephódia toû apodēmoûntos. The handbook was first translated from Arabic by Constantime the African (d. before 1099).

Dioscorides’ Materia Medica lists the humoral qualities of drugs. Or. 3366, f. 89r

Opening of Maimonides’ Abridgment of Galen’s ‘Method of Healing’ in Judaeo-Arabic, that is, Arabic written in Hebrew. The text begins with the basmala ‘In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate (Bi-smi llāhi l-raḥmāni l-raḥīm)’ .

Ibn Jazla’s Almanac of Bodily Parts for the Treatment of People, written in Arabic and Karshūnī, meaning Arabic written in Syriac letters. In it, Ibn Jazlan often arranged the information in the form of diagrams.

Arab physicians divided medicine into two areas: ‘the preservation of health which aims to retain the state of a healthy individual and prevent him or her from becoming ill; and ‘the restoration of health which aims to return the sick person to his natural healthy state. This 13th-century manuscript image from al-Ḥarīrī’s Maqāmāt shows doctors visiting a patient.

The description of malabathron (sādhaj) in the Arabic translation of Dioscorides’ Medical Substances. The face of the person collecting the malabathron has been erased.

A 16th-century Persian miniature dipicting Ibn Sina (Avicenna) at the bedside of a patient suffering from love-sickness (ʿishq). According to Arabo-Islamic physicians, the overall functioning of the body demonstrated the reciprocity between the mixture of the humours on one side and psychological events on the other.

Surgical instruments illustrated in a Hebrew translation of al-Zahrāwī’s Surgery.

Surgical instruments from Fusṭāṭ (Old Cairo), 9th century.

In school. Al-Jāḥiẓ said: ‘God has divided stupidity into 100 parts. He gave 99 parts to teachers and the last part to other people.’

Right: Surgical instruments for extracting a dead foetus taken from al-Zahrāwī’s Surgery. It would appear that the obstetrical operations outlined in medieval medical texts might represent a kind of relic of ancient theory rather than contemporaneous practice. Like al-Zahrāwī, most doctors probably employed less invasive means, such as the use of pharmaceuticals, for these difficult procedures.

Right: Doctors working in the medieval Islamicate world engaged critically with the material concerning ophthalmology that was inherited from Graeco- Roman antiquity. This field of medicine was called kuḥl in Arabi. This 13th century manuscript dipicts instruments for eye surgery as displayed in a copy of al-Ḥalabī’s Sufficient Book on Ophthalmology (al-Kāfī fī l-kuḥl).

The end of a plague tract that, according to the colophon shown here, was completed on 19 Rabi‘ II 944 (= 26 September 1537). The author is apparently the same as the Malakite theologian Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥaṭṭāb al-Malikī al-Ru‘aynī who died in 1547/954. The undated copy appears to have been made during the author's lifetime and is possibly in his own hand.

A manuscript from al-Ḥarīrī’s Maqāmāt dipicting cupping performed by a charlatan.

Frontispiece from Crollius’ Royal Chemistry (Basilica Chymica) which was translated into both Ottoman Turkish and Persian in the 17th century.

Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo. In the 9th century, the mosque had a bīmāristān attached to it. in the 9th century.

Layout of Qalawun's hospital in Cairo, as it functioned in the early nineteenth century.

The opening page of the revised Latin translation of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine.

Among al-Rāzī’s most important medical works is the multi-volume Arabic encyclopaedia called The Comprehensive Book of Medicine (Al-Kitāb al-Ḥāwī fī al-Ṭibb), which consists of a collection of lecture notes gathered and arranged by al-Rāzī’s students after his death.

Two people in a physician’s surgery. From Ibn Buṭlān’s Physicians’ Dinner Party. The manuscript is from 13th century Iraq or Syria.

13th-century manuscript from Animals and their uses/ Kitab na’t al-hayawan wamanafi’ihi showing Aristotle and Alexander the Great.

Inside the Divrigi hospital in Turkey.