FIMA Year Book 2009 - Federation of Islamic Medical Associations

Muslim Contributionsdevoted to the mentally ill.Najib ul- Din Muhammad, acontemporary of al- Razi, left manyexcellent descriptions of variousmental diseases. His carefully compiledobservation on actual patients madeup the most complete classification ofmental diseases theretofore known.Najib described agitated depression,obsessional types of neurosis, NafkhaeMalikholia (combined priapism andsexual impotence), Kutrib (a form ofpersecutory psychosis) and Dual-Kulb(a form of mania).An asylum for the mentally ill wasbuilt early in the 8th century at Fez,Morocco. This was followed by others;in Baghdad (705 C.E.), in Cairo(800CE), in Damascus and Aleppo(1270C.E.). In addition to baths,drugs, kind and benevolent treatmentgiven to the mentally ill, music-therapyand occupational therapy were alsoemployed. These therapies were highlydeveloped at that time.Unfortunately the great Islamiccivilization constructed by the Muslimsin that era went into decline after1000 years of glory and progress (10) .The flow of technology, research anddevelopment from the Islamic worldto the West gradually slowed down andultimately completely reversed in thepast 500 years (11) .Over the last decades, Westerneducators have been trying toimprovise the medical educationsystem by emulating the Muslimsystem of the past but at the same timeavoiding mentioning that Islamic andArab systems pre dated their efforts.A case in point is the introduction ofan integrated and spiral curriculuminstead of dividing curriculum intobasic and clinical sciences based ondisciplines.The best way to inculcate Islamic inputin our medical education system is torediscover and revive the methodologyadopted by the great Muslim scholarscited above.The rise and decline of Muslims’contribution: why and how?The enormous contributions of theMuslims to science in general andmedicine in particular are hardlysurprising. Islam has always extolledits followers to explore the frontiers ofknowledge beginning with the very firstwords revealed by Jibrail to ProphetMuhammad (PBUH) “ Read” (12) . Thisis followed by many other verses whichchallenge the human mind to look andstudy Allah’s creation (13-16). In at leasttwo such verses, Allah challenged thebelievers to look around themselves andthen at themselves, a clear challengefor humans to understand themselvesbetter (17, 18) . The Qur’an also remindedthe believers that whatever they knowat the time of revelation was but a dropfrom an ocean of knowledge that iswith the Creator (19) . It was such versesfrom the Qur’an which spurred thethought processes of those generationsand which led to inquisitive mindsexploring the frontiers of knowledgeculminating in boundless discoveriesFIMA YearBook 2009107