Islam Creator of the Modern Age
1. Islam: Creator of the Modern Age
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establishing medical colleges and hospitals, which
did not exist in Greece. Not merely was it taught in
the colleges of Iraq, but the teaching was
accompanied by a flourishing medical service. The
first hospital in Baghdad was founded about the
year 800 on the initiative of the Caliph Harun al
Rashid, and records have been preserved of the
founding of four other hospitals there in the first
quarter of the tenth century. A thirteenth century
hospital in Cairo is said to have had
accommodation for 8,000 persons. It had separate
wards for male and female patients, as well as for
different categories of ailment. The staff included
physicians and surgeons, pharmacists, attendants of
both sexes and administrative officers, and, besides
store-rooms and a chapel, there were facilities for
lecturing and a library.
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The Arabs thus made extraordinary advances in
medicine through their research. The first important
physician was Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya
ar-Razi (d. 923), known in Europe as Rhazes. He
wrote voluminously on many scientific and
philosophic subjects, and over fifty of his works are
extant. His greatest work,
Al-Havi,
was translated
