In a marked shift from the positivist philosophy that influenced medical education for more than a century, world medical educators realize now the significance of the spiritual element of human nature. Consensus is currently building on the need to give more emphasis to the study of humanities in medical colleges. The aim is to allow graduates to reach to the heart of human learning about meaning of life and death and to become more reflective practitioners. The medicine taught and practiced during the Islamic civilization era was a vivid example of the unity of the two components of medical knowledge: natural sciences and humanities. This historical fact formed the foundation for the three medical humanities courses presented in this article.

Little is known about the state of experimentation in the field of medicine during the Medieval Islamic era. With few exceptions, most of the contemporary sources on history of medicine propagate the idea that the roots of experimental medicine in its modern form, including clinical trials and drug-potency studies, first started during the European Renaissance in the 16th to the 18th centuries. This study is part of an ongoing multidisciplinary primary-source investigation of the original Arabic works of 11 Islamic medical scholars who lived and practiced between the 9th and the 13th centuries. The study critically evaluated and documented their contributions to the development of the scientific method and experimental medicine during that medieval Islamic era in several areas including critical appraisal of previous knowledge, clinical observations and case reports, clinical therapeutic trials, drug potency trials, experimentation on animals, dissection and dissection experiments as well as postmortem examinations. In each of the above-mentioned areas, significant contributions were made during the Medieval Islamic era from as early as the ninth century CE.

This study of the original Arabic edition of the book Al-Taysir fi ‘l-Mudawat wa'l-Tadbir (Book of Simplification Concerning Therapeutics and Diet) written by the Muslim physician Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar, 1093-1162 CE) aims at evaluating his contributions to the progress of surgery and providing English translations of relevant excerpts. Ibn Zuhr's unique experiment performing a tracheotomy on a goat, proved the safety of this operation in humans and represented a further step in the development of the experimental school started by Al-Razi (Rhazes) of Baghdad in the 9th century. Ibn Zuhr also performed post mortems on sheep in the course of his clinical research on treatment of ulcerating diseases of the lungs. Same as all his predecessors in the Islamic Era, he stressed the importance of a practical and sound knowledge of anatomy for surgical trainees. Furthermore, Ibn Zuhr insisted on a well supervised and structured training program for the surgeon-to-be, before allowing him to operate independently. He also drew the red lines at which a physician should stop, during his general management of a surgical condition; a step forward in the evolution of general surgery as a specialty of its own. Furthermore, Ibn Zuhr enriched surgical and medical knowledge by describing many diseases and treatment innovations not ever described before him.

The creation of hospitals as institutions for the care of sick people was developed during the early Islamic era. Over time, hospitals were found in all Islamic towns. This article describes four of these medieval hospitals in Syria, two in Aleppo and two in Damascus. The author, who visited these institutions, describes their history and functions and illustrates the article with photographs that he took himself.

Kitab fi Al Jadari wa Al Hasaba authored by the Muslim physician Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (d. ca. 925)) is one of the books that remained popular and in great demand for over a millennium, and also repeatedly translated into many languages. This Treatise on Smallpox and Measles was the first comprehensive text on this disease. In the following short note, Dr. Nasim Hasan Naqvi presents this text, its main contents and its historical context.

Some medical historians of the last century mistakenly recorded that Caesarean section was strictly forbidden amongst Muslims. This opinion has been repeatedly quoted without examining its authenticity or validity. Research into available ancient Arabic sources can lead to evidence contrary to such a view. The Islamic scholars of the Middle ages were, in fact, the first to not only write about this operation but to illustrate it in pictures and describe it in poetry. Considering the antiquity of their time, it is unfair to compare them with scholars of a later date; but their achievements must be valued.

This primary-source study of four medical works of the 13th century Muslim scholar Ibn al-Nafis confirmed that his Kitab al-Mûjaz fi al-Tibb was authored as an independent book. It was meant as a handbook for medical students and practitioners not as an epitome of Kitab al-Qanun of Ibn Sina as thought by recent historians. Ibn al-Nafis' huge medical encyclopedia Al-Shamil represents a wave of intense scientific activity that spread among the scholars of Cairo and Damascus in the 13th century. Like his predecessors in the Islamic Era, Ibn al-Nafis critically appraised the views of scholars before him in the light of his own experimentation and direct observations. Accordingly, we find in his books the first description of the coronary vessels and the true concept of the blood supply of the heart as well as the correct description of the pulmonary circulation and the beginnings of the proper understanding of the systemic circulation. Those discoveries, spreading from East to West, were translated into Latin by Andreas Alpagus and appeared in the works of European scholars from Servetus to Harvey. Furthermore, this study documented several other contributions of Ibn al-Nafis to the progress of human functional anatomy and to advances in medical and surgical practice.

During the classical Muslim civilisation, big scientific advances in medicine were made. Muslim doctors began by collecting all the medical observations and theories of their predecessors, especially Hippocrates and Galen, and built an original and influential tradition of medical knowledge. This article presents selected episodes from this tradition, thus proving its richness and wide scope. Beginning by briefly setting the historical context, the author then then to Al-Zahrawi, the "Father of Surgery", Ibn Zuhr, the Doctor of Seville, Ibn Rushd, Doctor and Philosopher, Ibn Maymun, a doctor in exile, and finally the discoverer of the "secrets of the heart", Ibn al-Nafis al-Dimashqi.

Al-Razi (Rhazes) (born in 864 CE) wrote over 200 scientific treatises, many of which had a major impact on European medicine. His best known manuscript is Liber Continens, a medical encyclopedia in which he described his contributions to neurology, focusing on his description of cranial and spinal cord nerves and his clinical case reports, which illustrate his use of neuroanatomy to localize lesions. In this article, Dr Nizar Souayah and Dr Jeffrey I. Greenstein focus on Al-Razi's description of the cranial and spinal nerves and his relevant clinical case reports, which illustrate his understanding of neuroanatomy and the application of his knowledge to clinical practice.