Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition

Change and Identity
FAZLUR RAHMAN

In his Foreword to this book, Martin Marty mentions the fact that, if present trends continue, before many decades pass Muslims will outnumber Jews and become the second largest faith group in the United States. For that reason alone, this work by a world-renowned expert on Islam will play a crucial role in helping North Americans understand the concepts of illness, well-being, suffering, and destiny that inform the Muslim mind and world.

This is not a history of medicine in Islam, although Chapter 4 does provide basic information about the health care institutions generated by the moral and spiritual values of Islam. Rather, it is a pioneering attempt to portray the relationship of Islam as a system of faith and as a tradition to human health and health care. It addresses the question: What value does Islam attach to human well-being-spiritual, mental, and physical-and what inspiration has it given Muslims to realize that value? After describing the general world view of Islam, and showing how the very meaning of Islam is integrality and wholeness, the work sets out in detail the religious doctrine of Islam on health and medicine proper, primarily as contained in the important branch of Islamic literature known as Prophetic Medicine. Then ensue chapters on medical care in the Islamic world, medical ethics, sexual ethics, and attitudes toward death and dying.

FAZLUR RAHMAN is Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Islamic Thought at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Included among his many books are Avicenna's Psychology, Islam, Major Themes of the Qu'ran, and Islam and Modernity.



Contents

Foreword by Martin E. Marty			ix
Prefatory Note			xiii
A Historical Introduction to Islam			1
1.	Wellness and Illness in the Islamic World View		11
	God, Nature, and Humankind		11
	The Social Outlook of the Qur'an		17
	The Sources		19
2.	The Religious Valuation of Medicine		29
	Hadith and Medicine		32
	Scientific Medical Tradition and Religious Justification		38
3.	The Prophetic Medicine		41
	Its Origin and Character		41
	Religion and Medicine-as-an-Inexact-Science		49
	Dietary Laws		53
	Medical Attitudes toward Certain Orthodox Restrictions		55
4.	Medical Care		59
	The Auqaf (Pious Endowments)		60
	Hospitals		66
	Medical Clinics		72
	Medical Education and Medical Examination		80
	Spiritual Medicine		84
5.	Medical Ethics		91
	Human Dignity		100
	The Family		101
	Bioethical Issues		106
6.	Passages		111
	Birth		111
	Contraception and Abortion		113
	Sexuality		118
	Death		125
Epilogue			131
Notes			135
Indexes			143

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