ADVANCEMENT OF MEDICINE

Dr David B. Werner (b. 1934) author of the acclaimed book Where There Is No Doctor writes: ‘In most places in India, people believe that these diseases are caused because the goddess is angry with their family or their community. The goddess expresses her anger through the diseases. The people believe that the only hope of a cure for these diseases is to make offerings to her in order to please her. They do not feed the sick child or care for him because they fear this will annoy the goddess more. So the sick child becomes very weak and either dies or takes a long time to get cured. These diseases are caused by virus infection. It is essential that the child be given plenty of food to keep up his strength so that he can fight the infection.’ When Islam came to the world, it banished such superstitious beliefs about disease, announcing in no ambiguous terms that none except God had the power to harm or benefit humankind. The Creator was the one and only Being who had such power. All the rest were His creatures and His servants. When, after the Islamic revolution, such ideas gained ground, people began to think freely and independently of all superstitions. Only then did it become possible to conduct medical research into the disease in order to discover appropriate remedies. Only after this intellectual revolution had come to the world did it become possible to make smallpox the subject of enquiry. Only then did it become possible for such people as al-Razi and Edward Jenner to rise and save the world from this dreaded disease by discovering a remedy for it. The real barrier to finding a cure was the generally accepted body of superstitious beliefs, these beliefs were swept away for the first time in history by Islam. This contribution of Islam is generally acknowledged. In the November/December, 2016 issue of National Geographic History magazine, Víctor Pallejà De Bustinza, a specialist in Islamic History writes in an article titled ‘How Early Islamic Science Advanced Medicine’: ‘The growth of Islam in the seventh century sparked a golden age of scientific discovery. Building on the wisdom of ancient civilizations, Muslim doctors pushed the boundaries of medical science into bold new places.’ o