The Muslim News

The British Post Office issues special stamps to commemorate 100

years of the Woking Muslim Mission and our work

A Big Thank You
A large number of our
members left the UK to
take part in the 100-year
anniversary Jalsa. This left
us short of people to carry
out the regular duties of
the Jamaat such as keeping Dar-us-Salaam open
and
leading
Friday
prayers, etc. At this point,
five of our members
stepped forward to continue the work of the
Jamaat
from
midDecember to the end of
January. So a big thank
you to all of you, especially
Mudassar, Yahya, Nasir,
and Danial Zakria. Our
younger members have
proven that, to quote a famous phrase, the news of
our death are much exaggerated.
Thank you all. May Allah
bless you and reward you
for all your efforts and
hard work, Amin.

March

2014
Issue 20

Sleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul,

A World Heritage Site

Next Meeting
Sunday, 2nd March,
2014 at 15:00
Dar-us-Salaam,
15 Stanley Ave, Wembley,
HA0 4JQ

Broadcasts
at
www.virtualmosque.co.uk
Friday service: 12:30
Dars: 13:15
Monthly meetings: first
Sunday of the month
at 15:00

The Islamic Roots of

Parasitology and
Geography
by David W. Tschanz

Mr Mushtaq Mellick, who left us

to go to a better place and everlasting peace and happiness. He
took the trouble to travel a long
way to take part in commemorating the 100th anniversary of
the founding of the Ahmadiyya
Anjuman Ishaat Islam. In the
photograph above, he is enjoying a break with his wife. May
Allah grant him a place among
those whom He loves and overlook his human frailties, Amin.

Ibn Zuhr, known in the West

as Avenzoar, was one of the
greatest physicians, clinicians
and parasitologists of the
Middle Ages. Some historians
of science describe him as the
leading Muslim physician after Al-Razi (Rhazes) and Ibn
Sina (Avicenna), while some
of his contemporaries called
him the greatest physician
since Galen.
Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik Ibn
Zuhr was born in Seville,
Spain in 1091 C.E. He graduated from Cordoba Medical
University and after a brief
stay in Baghdad and Cairo,

Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam Lahore (UK)

15 Stanley Avenue, Wembley, UK, HA0 4JQ
aaiiLahore@gmail.com

returned to Spain and

worked for the Almoravids
as a physician. Later, Ibn
Zuhr worked for Abd alMumin, the first Muwahid
ruler, both as physician and
as minister. He devoted his
career to Seville and died in
1161 C.E.
Ibn Zuhr confined his work
only to medicine, contrary to
the prevailing practice of
Muslim scientists who typically worked in several
fields. Still, by focusing on
one field he made many
original and long-lasting contributions. He emphasized
observation and experiment
in his work.
Ibn Zuhr made several
breakthroughs as a physician. He was the first to test
different medicines on animals before administering
them to humans. Also, he
was the first to describe scabies and the itch mite in detail, and is thus regarded as
the Father of Parasitology.
He was also the first to give a
full description of the tracheotomy operation and practiced direct feeding through
the gullet in those cases
where normal feeding was
not possible. As a clinician,
he provided clinical descriptions of intestinal phthisis,
inflammation of the middle
ear, pericarditis, and mediastinal tumors among others.
Ibn Zuhr wrote a number of
important books for both the
medical specialists and the
common people. Several of
his books were translated
into Latin and were in great
demand in Europe until the
late Eighteenth Century. Unfortunately only three of his
greatest books have survived.
Kitab al-Taisir fi al-Mudawat
wa al-Tadbir, (The Book of
Simplification
concerning
Therapeutics and Diet) was
written at the request of Ibn
Rushd (Averroes). The work

contains many of Ibn Zuhrs

original contributions, particularly in its detailed discussions of pathological conditions and therapy.
The second book, Kitab alIqtisad fi Islah Al-Anfus wa alAjsad (translated as the Book
of the Middle Course concerning the Reformation of Souls
and the Bodies), summarizes
different diseases, therapeutics and hygiene. It also discusses the role of psychology
in treatment.
This book is written in an
easy to understand format for
the non-specialist. The third
book, Kitab al-Aghziya (Book
on Foodstuffs), discusses numerous drugs and the importance of food and nutrition.
The beginning of modern
geography
Early geography and cartography were more art than science. Although astronomers,
through their study of the
universe, were able to theorize about such general geographical concepts like the
shape of the earth, early geography was, for the most part,
a product of the imagination:
a collection of wondrous fables and marvelous tales of
faraway places.
In the Twelfth Century, however, an Amazigh geographer
and cartographer named Abu
Abdullah Mohammed bin Mohammed Abdullah bin Idris al
-Hammudi al-Hassani started
the revolution that ultimately
led to modern geography.
Al-Idrisi was born in 1100 in
Ceuta, Morocco, to a noble
Amazigh family, the Hammudites. A direct descendant
of the Prophet Mohammed, he
was entitled to use the title ash-Sharif (the Noble).
During his youth he studied in
Cordoba, then the capital of
Islamic Spain. A poet, student
of medicine and an avid traveler, he was an accomplished
genius of the first order.

During his travels he retraced

the path of Islamic conquest.
The warrior horsemen who
had swept across the Mediterranean spreading the new
faith had vowed that only the
ocean waves at al-Maghreb
(the West) would stop their
horses. Al-Idrisis adventurous spirit was equal to theirs.
He voyaged westward to Madeira and the Canary Islands,
stopped only by the immensity of the Atlantic Ocean.
Al-Idrisis reputation for
learning, and his fame as a
traveler, eventually earned
him an invitation from Roger
II, the Norman ruler of Sicily,
to visit the island. Received
with high honors, al-Idrisi
found in Roger a kindred
spirit with an intellectual curiosity that matched his own.
The monarchs insatiable fascination with geography occupied all the time he did not
spend administering his tiny
kingdom.
Prior to Rogers death in
1154, al-Idrisi completed construction of a celestial sphere
and a disk-shaped map of the
known world (a planisphere),
both of solid silver. The map
was based on the encyclopedic work al-Idrisi completed
under Rogers patronage:
the Kitab Nuzhat al-Mushtaq
fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaq, sometimes
called the Kitab ar-Rujari
(The Book of Roger).
It was not until 1592 that the
manuscript made its first
European appearance in an
abridged edition printed in
Rome. It was translated into
Latin in 1619 but it has yet to
be rendered into English in its
entirety. Other information
was obtained from persons
sent specifically for the purpose of gathering information. Al-Idrisi stayed on at the
court in Palermo after Rogers
death and wrote another geographical treatise, The Garden
of Civilization and the Amusement of the Soul.