Medieval Islamic Medicine

by Peter E Pormann and Emilie Savage-Smith

The origin for all these medical advancements came directly from the Prophet. The Koran says, ‘For every disease, Allah has given a cure.’ It was this belief that there is a cure for every disease that encouraged early Muslims to engage in biomedical research. The Qalawun Hospital in Cairo could care for 8,000. There were even research facilities that discovered, for example, the mechanisms of the eye. Muslim doctors were removing cataracts with hollow needles more than 1,000 years before Western physicians.