MEDICINES AND METHODS OF THERAPY IN THE ARAB AND ISLAMIC WORLD

Arab and Islamic medicine is widely used in most Arab and Islamic world which form about one fifth of the world's population. The Arab and Muslim world refers in geopolitical sense to Muslim majority countries or countries in which Islam dominates politically. This community is spread across many different nations and ethnic groups connected only by religion. Medicine in general is considered to be one of the best known facets of Arab-Islamic civilization. Islamic medicine or Arab-Islamic medicine refers to medicine developed in the medieval Islamic civilization and written in Arabic, the lingua franca of the Islamic civilization. The development of Arab-Islamic medicine was based on, 1) Practical knowledge developed traditional healers in the pre-Islamic period based on a long history of trial and error. 2) Theoretical and practical knowledge developed in the Greek, Indian and Persian medical systems, which became available to Arab and Muslim scholars after translation of their medical scripts 3) Theoretical and practical knowledge introduced by the Islam. These include natural products mentioned in the holly Quran or in the Hadith of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), 4) Theoretical and practical innovations introduced by Arab and Muslim scholars. To keep within the scope of the present review, we will highlight contributions of the Islam and innovations introduced by Arab and Muslim scholars.