Page 72 - The Qur'an Leads the Way to Science

THE QUR'AN LEADS THE W A Y TO SCIENCE

authored more than 30 books. Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (1162-1231) is
known for his studies in anatomy. He corrected the mistakes made in the
past in anatomical studies of many bones of the body, such as the jaw and
chest bone. Baghdadi's book, Al-Ifade ve'l Itibar, was re-published in 1788,
and translated into Latin, German and French. His book Makalatun fi'l
Havas covered the five senses.
Muslim anatomists determined the number of bones in the human
skull correctly, and discovered the existence of three ossicles in the ear.
One of the leading Muslim scientists working in anatomy was Ibn Sina
(980-1037), known as Avicenna in the West. Instructed in literature,
mathematics, geometry, physics, natural sciences, philosophy and logic,
in his early years, Ibn Sina was not only widely known in the East, but
also in the West. His most popular work, al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, known as the
'Canon' in the West, was written in Arabic, and after its translation into
Latin in the 12th century, became the textbook of the schools of Europe
until the 17th century. The Canon deals with diseases and drugs in a
systematic manner. Apart from this, he wrote more than 100 books on
philosophy and natural sciences. A significant portion of the medical
knowledge included in the Canon is still accepted today.
Zakariya Qazwini countered many mistaken beliefs about the heart

and the brain that had been professed since Aristotle. The facts he
provided about the heart and the brain are very close to our knowledge
of today.
The works in anatomy of Zakariya Qazwini, Hamdullah al-Mustaufi
al-Qazwini (1281-1350), and Ibn al-Nafis, laid the foundation of modern
medicine. These scientists demonstrated, as early as the 13th and 14th
centuries, the connections between the heart and the lungs, that the
arteries carry oxygenated blood, and the veins carry deoxygenated blood,
that the blood is oxygenated in the lungs, and that the oxygenated blood
that returns to the heart is carried to the brain and other organs of the
body via the aorta.
The first volume of Ali Bin Isa's (?-1038) three-volume work on the
ophthalmologic diseases, called the Tezkiratu'l Kahhalin fi'l Ayn and
Emraziha, is entirely devoted to the anatomy of the eye and includes very
detailed information. The work was translated into Latin and German.

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