Between roughly the eighth and thirteenth centuries, the Islamic world was the centre of medical learning, and much of Greek medicine survived only because it was translated into Arabic, preserved and extended there.
Al-Razi (Rhazes, c. 854–925) wrote the first clear clinical distinction between smallpox and measles, kept detailed case notes, and — unusually for his time — wrote a book criticising Galen where his own observations disagreed.
Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980–1037) completed the Canon of Medicine around 1025. It organised the whole of medical knowledge into a single system and was the standard textbook in European universities until the seventeenth century. He described contagion, discussed clinical trial principles, and covered several hundred drugs.
Al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis, 936–1013) wrote a thirty-volume work whose surgical section illustrates around two hundred instruments, many of his own design. He described ligature of arteries and the use of catgut.
Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288) described pulmonary circulation roughly three centuries before it was worked out in Europe.
The bimaristan was a genuine institutional innovation: hospitals open to all regardless of faith or ability to pay, with separate wards for different conditions including mental illness, attached pharmacies, teaching duties and record-keeping. The Al-Mansuri hospital in Cairo and the Nur al-Din in Damascus were on a scale Europe would not match for centuries.
The treatment of mental illness deserves particular note. At a time when madness was widely understood in Europe as possession, these hospitals housed patients in dedicated wards and used music, occupation and baths.
This is the tradition that became Unani-Tibb. The vocabulary of Indian Unani practice — mizaj, akhlat, ilaj-bil-ghiza — comes directly from it, and Ibn Sina's Canon remains a foundational text in Indian Unani colleges today.
This site is a personal account and a record of traditional practice, shared for information. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a treatment for any disease. I am not a doctor.
If you are unwell — and especially if you have a serious illness such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease — please stay under the care of a qualified physician. Nothing here should replace or delay that care.