Dr. Mutaz al-Khatib is currently Assistant Professor of Methodology and Ethics at the Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics, as well as the first-of-its-kind MA program in Applied Islamic Ethics at the College of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He holds a BA in Islamic Studies from Damascus (1997) and in Arabic […]
Tag Archives: Medicine
22
Dec
Dec
A couple of things to highlight about “Islamic” medicine: 1. The historical record of Islamic medicine doesn’t refer to the practice being rooted in religious teachings. In fact, most physicians in the Islamic civilization were not even Muslim or Arab for that matter. Ibn Sina was a Persian Muslim. Abu Bakr ar-Rāzī was a Persian […]
18
Sep
Sep
Vaccination certificate in the Ottoman Empire against a pandemic during the period of Sultan Abdul Hamid-ll in 1908 (1326 AH) Infectious diseases and pandemics leading to mass deaths are a reminder of how intimately connected we are. Even with those who we have no social relationships, the simple act of being present in relatively close […]
08
Feb
Feb
Illustrations from a 1460 adaptation, printed by Schneider Ausgabe XII. On the left, the dying person is tempted by pride, and on the right they find salvation through humility. __________________________________________________________________________ I read Atul Gawande’s 2014 book Being Mortal just before I started medical school. I was really struck by Gawande’s vivid description of the way […]
04
Feb
Feb
This book was quite a sobering read that I think everyone, especially those in medicine should pick up. As Dr. Atul Gawande states at the beginning of it, medical education is so focused on saving lives that physicians may be the least prepared for their patients to deal with the inevitable flip side of this […]
01
Feb
Feb
The following is an excerpt from Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Dr. Atul Gawande. This 2014 This book was quite a sobering read that I think everyone, especially those in medicine should pick up. As Dr. Gawande states at the beginning of it, medical education is so focused on saving lives that […]
14
Jan
Jan
The following is an excerpt from the epilogue written by Lucy Kalanithi to the recently published book When Breath Becomes Air written by her husband Paul Kalanithi, who died in March 2015 after a battle with stage IV lung cancer. It’s not merely a chronicle of how Paul reacted to and dealt with his cancer as it […]
14
Jan
Jan
What does it feel like to be a doctor and a patient at the same time? This is the experience of a neurosurgeon as he came face to face with his mortality after he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer that eventually metastasized to his brain. Paul Kalanithi writes in such tragically beautiful and […]