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PREFACE

Modern history records that not so long ago ambitious Europeans under the pretext of trading and exploration colonialised the Muslim lands all over the world. The youth, being the spinal column of the segment of Muslim society and being endowed with insight,

creativity, will power, concentration, memory, intuition, perseverance, mental vision, dynamic action and persuasion, were brainwashed by the colonialists through education. The colonial masters took a series of progressive steps towards misdirecting the inner potentials of Muslim youth. They hatched out an educational system to impress upon them that Islam had nothing original, but that everything was borrowed from Greek and other European cultures. This created a haunting inferiority complex and made them feel that the culture of the so-called superstratum was superior to the culture of the so-called substratum. The colonial powers patronized a class of writers known as Orientalists and conspired with them to produce massive anti-Islamic literature which would ingrain Muslim youth to regard Islamic Culture as inferior to that of the European and create in them a sense of guilt and shame for being Muslims, thus facilitating the entrenchment of their colonial masters in Muslim lands.

The foremost task of the Orientalists was to launch the most blustering and declamatory accusations against the Prophet of Islam - calling him an imposter, a liar, a magician, an epilectic and much more. The Muslim apologists joined them in the Anti-Hadith Movement. They destroyed the image of Islam as a creative culture and denied its contribution to any branch of human knowledge, including medicine. Libraries, homes, bookshops, bookdepots, universities, colleges and schools were flooded with this pernicious literature which paralyzed the creative thinking of Muslim youth. As a result they became sceptical about the truths of Islam. With the two world wars and the appalling dangers of the third global conflagration of unprecedented dimensions in the offing with the consequent impending destruction of the human race and culture indicate that man is badly in need of a God-fearing society and of pure literaturewhich makes him God-conscious. At the end of the Second World War in 1945, Muslim lands were emancipated from the colonial hands which allowed Muslim scholars and thinkers to reawaken from their deep slumber, exercise, their intellectual skill, challenge the so-called superstratum and thus Inspire the current resurgence of Islam through a series of Islamic literary productions.

Islamic Medical Associations, as guardians of the Islamic philosophy of medical knowledge in any part of the world, have manifold responsibilities towards the preservation and promotion of Islamic values and norms. Among many such obligations, only a few which can be enumerated here are:-

1. Stewardship of the Islamic medical ethics.
2. Islamic solution of day to day problems which have been created by the recent dramatic and meteoric rise of medical sciences.
3. Reconciliation between the religious ethics and the situation ethics and resolution of conflicting religious and secular values.
4. Revival of Arabic medical literature through studies of the contributions made by the early Islamic medical thinkers, philosophers and writers.
5. Convening of special seminars on the early Muslim medical writers and exploration of the areas of their specialization.
6. Introduction of early Muslim medical scholars and experts to contemporary Muslim youth who are ignorant of the original names of such scholars and they are oblivious of their works except their latinized names.
7. Purification of the intellectual and academic climate and the emancipation of Muslim youth from the prevailing inferiority complexes which have been created by the Orientalists.

Intellectual traditions and values are not merely inherited from our forebears. They are acquired, obtained and preserved by great sacrificing efforts of the inheritors of the traditions. The consciousness of the rich past can alone create a will to have a rich present and to aspire for a rich future. Traditions involve a historical sense and a historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastiness of the past but also of its present and its future.

   (TS. Eliot)

The great poet-philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal in his Persian verses renders the idea much more lucidly.

We expect and pray that this effort may stimulate and unfold the potential of our youth who intend pursuing studies in medical sciences. It is hoped that they will learn the Arabic language in order to understand the Qur'an and the Sunna, the primary sources of all Ulum (sciences) which developed under its inspiration. It is also expected that they will embark on researches on Ibn-Sina, Ibn-Rushd and ar-Rizi and others in the light of available data and research methodologies, seeking out new materials and thus render the unknown, the known.

This monograph was infact presented in an abridged form at the second annual conference of the Islamic Medical Association of South Africa (I.M.A.), held in Durban in May 1982, and then was enlarged for ail International Conference of Muslim Physicians. The purpose was to stimulate our young doctors for reflective study of the evolution of Islamic Medical Sciences as portrayed in Arabic and Persian medical literature, as well as to re-establish Truth, seeking historical justice in favour of the Muslim medical scientists of the past, not from the Orientalists but from our Muslim medical specialists. To remain silent or apologetic on the offensive views on Islam, a continuous challenge, is an intellectual and moral cowardice. It is hoped that this small monograph, without being comprehensive, will serve the purpose. My gratitudes are due to Dr. Allie Moosa, Professor of Pediatric medicine at the Natal Medical College, Durban, for writing the Foreword. Special thanks are due to Dr. G.M. Karim, the branch a chairman of I.M.A. in the Eastern Transvaal, who read the draft carefully, made valuable suggestions and wrote an inspiring Introduction. Mr. M.A. Khan merits mention for his technical assistance. This painful task was not possible without his diligence in proof-reading.

Syed Habibul Haq Nadvi
Dept. of Arabic, Urdu & Persian
in University of Durban-Westville

Friday 4 February 1983