Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

MEDICINE
Before the advent of Islam, the Arabs knew the medicinal value of plants and certain stones found in Arabia. The pre-Islamic physician was Haris bin Kalda. He studied medicine and philosophy in the college of Junda-Shahpur in Iran. After the advent of Islam, the first and the greatest physician of the Islamic world, nay. the whole world, was Ha/rat Muhammad (PBUH). He understood the use and value of medical arts. He recommended the practice of medicine to his companions and Sahih Bukhari, an authentic work on
” 1 lusam
\asr. Science and Civili/ation in Islam. P 204

488 Political and Cultural History of,Islam

the traditions, containing two chapters on how to cure various diseases.
According to Hitti, ”The peninsular medicine was very primitive indeed. Legitimate remedies mingled with magical practices and talismans against the evil eye. A few prescriptions limiting treatment to the use of honey, cupping and bleeding embedded in traditions termed ”the Prophet’s medicine’” have been preserved and handed down to posterity. The critical ibn-Khaldun in his famous Muqaddamah speaks slightingly of this type of medicine, declaring that the Holy Prophet was sent to teach religious law and principles rather than medication.”
Scientific Arab medicine springs from sources mainly Greek and partly Persian. Persian medicine itself was influenced by Greek tradition. The list of Arabian physicians in the first century of Islam is headed by al-Harith ibn-Kaladah of al-Ta’if, who studied in Persia. Al-Harith was the first scientifically trained man in the peninsula and won the honorary title of ”the doctor of the Arabians”. In the art of healing he was succeeded, as was customary, by his son al-Nadr, whose mother was the Holy Prophet’s maternal aunt.
By the time of the Arab conquest of Western Asia, Greek science was no more a living force. It was rather a tradition in the hands of Greek or Syriac writing commentators and practitioners. The court doctors of the Umayyads belonged to this group. Outstanding among them were ibn-Uthal, the Christian physician of Mu’awiya, and Tayadhuq, the evidently Greek physician of al-Hajjaj. Some of Tayadhuq’s aphorisms have been preserved, but none of the three or four books ascribed to him. A Jewish physician of Persian origin, Masarjawayh of al-Basrah, who flourished in the first days of Man*an ibn-al-Hakam, translated (683) into Arabic a Syriac treatise on medicine originally composed in Greek by a Christian priest in Alexandria, Ahrun by name,’ and was thus responsible for the earliest scientific book in the language of Islam. The Caliph al-Walid is credited with having segregated persons afflicted with leprosy and with having made special provision for their treatment. Umar II is said to have transferred the schools of medicine from Alexandria, where the Greek tradition flourished, to Antioch and Harran.7 ASTRONOMY
The Muslims made a great progress in astronomy. Their contributions in this field are the basis of future development.
7 Sarton. Introduction to the History of Science, P.241.
Cultural Activities under the Umayyads
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Muslim contribution to astronomy is unforgettable and valuable. The greatest discoveries and studies were made by the Muslims under the Umayyads and Abbasids. They made wonderful discoveries about the movements of solar system and other astral bodies. They ascertained the size of the earth, the variation of the latitudes and the precession of the equinoxes. Abul Hassan discovered atmospheric reflection and al-Maimun determined the obliquity of the ecliptic. Ibn Jannus. Nasir Tusi and al-Bani constructed astronomical tables of great value.