Islamic Medicine and Evolutionary Medicine: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The advent of evolutionary medicine in the last two decades has provided new insights into the causes of human disease and possible preventative strategies. One of the strengths of evolutionary medicine is that it follows a multi-disciplinary approach. Such an approach is vital to future biomedicine as it enables for the infiltration of new ideas. Although evolutionary medicine uses Darwinian evolution as a heuristic for understanding human beings’ susceptibility to disease, this is not necessarily in conflict with Islamic medicine. It should be noted that current evolutionary theory was first expounded by various Muslim scientists such as al-Jāḥiẓ, al-Ṭūsī, Ibn Khaldūn and Ibn Maskawayh centuries before Darwin and Wallace. In this way, evolution should not be viewed as being totally antithetical to Islam. This article provides a comparative overview of Islamic medicine and Evolutionary medicine as well as drawing points of comparison between the two approaches which enables their possible future integration.

The utilization of nonprescription medications in Saudi patients with cardiovascular diseases

“…The high use of black seeds could be explained by religious factors and the use of prophetic medicine (Al-Tibb-e-Nabawi) (Ahmad et al, 2013, Elolemy and Albedah, 2012). This type of nonconventional medicine is derived from the holy Qura'an and the prophet Mohammed guide (Hadith) to treat or diagnose different diseases (Ahmad et al, 2013, AlRawi et al, 2017, Saniotis, 2012). Furthermore, this study showed that despite its potential drug-herb interactions, garlic ( Allium sativum) was used as a supplement by 21.5% of Saudi patients, and this prevalence was higher than the 11.7% reported among patients at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota (Prasad et al, 2013).…”

Halalopathy: A science of trust in medicine

“…1). This principle is adapted from Islamic references [12], but many of them are shared with other religions. In practice, halalopathy is proceeded through a combination of two approaches: mind-trust-drug and mind-trust-belief; in the first approach, the disease can be cured by trusted and rationally designed drugs whereas in the second approach trust is developed if the belief is rationally realized.…”

“…The principles of halalopathy are mainly derived from Islamic references [12], and guidelines for the production of permissible therapy "halal pharma" have been implemented in many Muslim countries, thus the concept is mainly attractive for Muslim but still adaptable by other beliefs and lifestyles. To the best of our knowledge, halalopathy is the first to address entropy as the main target for prevention and cure.…”

Eternal Spirituality: An Outstanding Aspect of Iranian Islamic Traditional Medicine

“…Moreover, the therapist has a determinant role to prepare a proper spiritual condition for the patient. A therapist who does not have a good spiritual state could not be successful during the treatment process [14,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Also, as we mentioned, the high dignity of the spirit, according to Islamic doctrine, is attributed to the sincere faith in God.…”