For a long time after the physician's arrival in Mecca no...

For a long time after the physician's arrival in Mecca no one called on him or sought his treatment. Driven by ennui he approached the Holy Prophet and complained of his forced odium. The Prophet's reply was: “These people do not eat until they are hungry nor drink until thirsty and then cease eating while a desire for food still remains.” That must be the reason for their perfect health, said the physician. But medicine was not the Prophet's mission.

He had dedicated himself to the moral and spiritual uplift of humanity at large. Winwood Reade[^5] says, “Muhammad's career is the best example that can be given of the influence of the individual in human history. That single man created the glory of his nation and spread his language over half the earth. The words which he preached to jeering crowds are now being studied by scholars in London, Paris and Berlin ...

and in obscure villages situated by obscure streams.” According to Browne,[^6] the Prophet's biggest miracle was that he brought unity among the fighting Arabs with the result that they adopted one goal; and soon the Arabs as one nation became rulers of half of the civilized world. Care of the sick and wounded was but one facet of the Prophet's humanitarian personality. As pointed out by Wasti, the so-called Tibb-i Nabawi is not, therefore, to be confused with any medical treatise as such.

^7 The book is not taught in any recognized medical Yunani institution (as remarked by Browne), nor is it credited by Hakims and scholars of Arabian medicine. The only known physician in Prophet's time was al-Harith ibn Kaladah, an Arab Jew who later embraced Islam. He had studied medicine at Jundi­-Shapar school of medicine in Persia. He used to be consulted at the time of dire necessity, and he mainly advised moderation.

Among the surgeons of this time the last known was ibn abi Ramsiah of the tribe of Tamim. The Arabs adopted their medical theory chiefly from the Hippocratic and Galenic systems, though there were plentiful translations from Syriac, Persian, Indian, and Egyptian authors as well. The Hippocratic system, as is well known, is based on the humoral theory, i, e., the four humours of the body: blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy.

This system served the Arabs and Persians for five hundred years as it had served the Greeks and Romans for a thousand years before that.