While it has been acknowledged that Muslim scholars kept much of the ancient scientific and philosophical teachings alive during Europe's "Dark Ages," it has also been claimed that the Muslim physicians and scientists of Avicenna's time merely recorded the existing medical knowledge and translated the Greek works without adding much new material. This is inaccurate. Avicenna's Canon not only included translations from the Greek works of Hippocrates of Cos and Galen, it added much from the medical knowledge of the world of Islam, including Syria and Persia as well as works from India. Avicenna himself included much of his own findings and work. His original contributions included, among many other things, the relationship between psychology and health, which modern medicine has only acknowledged in fairly recent times. He also provided the most comprehensive treatment of pharmacology ever, including descriptions of 760 drugs and their uses.
If Avicenna had been born later, we would now call him the epitome of the "Renaissance Man," or at least by the definition with which we now use that term. He made original, accurate and important discoveries in mathematics and astronomy, studied philosophy to great effect, observed and studied many forces and concepts in physics, denied the prevailing view of transmutation in chemistry, and contributed greatly to music theory. In short, he can be compared to the great Leonardo da Vinci in the scope and brilliance of his work, and it can only be a quirk of history, or perhaps the fact that he left few visual records of his work, that the one is far more famous than the other.
An excerpt from The Oath of a Muslim Physician, adopted by the Islamic Medical Association of North America in 1977:
Praise be to Allah (God)…make us worthy of this favoured station with honor, dignity and piety so that we may devote our lives in serving mankind, poor or rich, literate or illiterate, Muslim or non-Muslim, black or white, with patience and tolerance, with virtue and reverence, with knowledge and vigilance, with Thy love in our hearts and compassion for Thy servants, Thy most precious creation.
Avicenna would have approved.
Note: We have traveled outside of our usual geographical area this week, though we are still in Asia, in honor of the Beauty of Islam Event.
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