THE IMPORTANCE AND ROLE OF ASTRONOMY IN ISLAM

Posted by Unknown , Thursday, 6 December 2012 05:39

"We have not created the heaven and the earth and all that is between them in mere idle play. None of this have We created without an inner truth: but most of them understand it not. " Surah al-Dukhan 44:38-39

"...He created the sun, the moon, and the stars (all) governed by laws under His commandment." surah al-A'raf 7:54

It is truly remarkable that the Qur'an revealed between 610 and 632 CE contains in it scientific knowledge that has taken centuries to be discovered. The only explanation for this is that without a doubt, it is divine in origin. We Muslims believe that the Qur'an, in original Arabic, is the actual word of Allah, the Most High. A proper understanding of the Qur'an therefore also requires an understanding of the worlds about us.
If there is any religion that invites man to the study and understanding of the heavens, it is Islam. An understanding of the discipline of astronomy is essential for the appreciation of the religion of Islam. No other religion uses or relies on the heavens and the motion of the moon and sun for time keeping and calendars as Islam does. Allah created this tremendous universe that we live in and we are invited to reflect upon it, to understand it so that we may be able to practice our religion with conviction based on reason to the best of our abilities.
"And it is He who ordained the stars for you that you may be guided thereby in the darkness of the land and the sea." Surah al-An'am-97
If you become familiar with the constellations and the stars in the sky, one can never be lost anywhere in the world. They are truly a guiding light in the canopy of the heavens. You can be anywhere in the world and immediately on looking up in the night sky and by recognizing stars, you can know what latitude you are at and where is north and thereby all the other directions. You can know what time of the year it is in the absence of any calendars. It is rather appropriate that the crescent moon and star is used as signs to represent matters of religion among Muslims.
                                  The Hubble telescope shows a pair of supersonic shocks waves created when gas from a collapsing star hits surrounding clouds of cosmic gas and dust.As it dies, the star is creating a new planetary nebula.

 The moon and the sun are of vital importance in the daily life of every Muslim. Using the moon, Muslims determine the beginning and the end of the months in their lunar calendar. By the sun the Muslims calculate the times for prayer and fasting based on the position of the sun in the horizon. It is also by means of astronomy that Muslims can determine the precise direction of the Qiblah, to face the Ka'bah in Makkah, during prayer.
"They ask you about new crescent moons, say they are but signs to mark fixed period of times for mankind and Hajj..." Surah al-Baqarah 2:189

The subject of crescent visibility has been studied in modern times by Prof Ilyas from Malaysia who has developed several visibility criteria and the concept of the International Lunar Date Line (ILDL). Ilyas's main criterion depends on the moon's altitude (in degrees) above the horizon at sunset and the moon's angular distance from the sun (relative azimuth) at sunset. If a moon's altitude and relative azimuth are greater than certain threshold values, then the moon is likely to be visible. The ILDL is a curved line on a world map which separates areas (west of the line) where the crescent is likely to be seen at the start of the lunar month from areas (east of the line) where the crescent is unlikely to be seen. The probability of sighting the crescent increases as one travels west of the ILDL and diminishes as one travels east of the ILDL. Unlike the solar date line which has a fixed position, the position of the ILDL moves from month to month. 

Sumber: www.majalahsains.com
Ulasan:

Adalah sesuatu yang menakjubkan apabila Quran mendedahkan antara 610 dan 630 kandungannya adalah mengenai pengetahuan ilmu Sains yang mengambil masa berkurun untuk ditemui.  Penjelasan yang jelas tentang hal ini tanpa ragu ialah kefahaman dala bahasa.  Sebagai muslim percaya Quran dalam bahasa Arab merupakan bahasa Allah yang paling tinggi.  Kefahaman yang jelas tentang isi Quran memberikan kefahaman yang jelas Dunia yang didiami oleh manusia.
       Dalam Islam, ilmu astronomi merupakan salah satu apresiasi dalam Islam. Tiada agama lain menggunakan disiplin ilmu tersebut untuk mengaitkan dengan alam ghaib seperti Syurga dan menggunakan bayang bulan dan matahari untuk menentukan masa dan calendar seperti yang Islam lakukan.  Allah menciptakan alam  yang menakjubkan tempat untuk kita tinggal dan kita disuruh untuk memahami kebesaran yang Maha Kuasa agar kita dapat mempraktikkannya dalam ajaran agama dengan keyakinan dan iktikad yang jelas kepada Allah.
            Jika manusia biasa dengan kedudukan bintang di langit, manusia tidak akan sesat di dunia.  Bintang merupakan petunjuk cahaya dalam kegelapan dan sebagai payung syurga.  Manusia boleh berada di mana sahaja di dunia dan melihat ke atas langit malam dan akan melihat bintang.  Dengan mengenal pasti bintang, manusia akan tahu latitud sama ada di utara atau di arah yang lain.  Manusia akan tahu tempoh tahun dalam mana-mana kaledar yang wujud di dunia.  Bulan dan Matahari begitu penting dalam kehidupan seharian manusia  terutamanya muslim.  Dengan bulan, muslim akan mengetahui permulaan dan pengakhiran bulan dalam calendar lunar mereka.  Dengan matahari, manusia akan mengira temph waktu solat dan puasa berdasarkan keadaan matahari di ufuk.  Justeru, ianya juga mampu membuatkan muslim dengan ilmu astronomi mengenal pasti arah dan kedudukan kiblat ketika solat.






 

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ABU AL-QASIM KHALAF IBN AL-ABBAS AL-ZAHRAWI

Posted by Unknown , 05:21

                                                             


"Father of Surgery"

             Almost a thousand years ago at a time when Spain (Al Andalus) was part of the Islamic empire, there lived near the capital city of Cordoba one of the great, but now largely forgotten, pioneers of surgery. He was known as Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi. Al-Zahrawi (also known as Albucasis) was simply the greatest Muslim surgeon, with European surgeons of his time coming to regard him as a greater authority than even Galen, the ancient world's acknowledged master.

He is considered as Islam's greatest medieval surgeon, whose comprehensive medical texts, combining Middle Eastern and Greco-Roman classical teachings, shaped European surgical procedures up until the Renaissance. When reading Al Zahrawi’s life history and his writings, it is clear that he devoted his entire life and genius to the development and enhancement of medicine as a whole and surgery in particular. Although he traveled very little, he had wide experience in treating accident victims and war casualties.Al Zahrawi is believed to have been born in the city of El-Zahra, six miles northwest of Cordoba, sometime between 936 and 940. It was here that he lived, studied, taught and practiced medicine and surgery. He is best known for his early and original breakthroughs in surgery.

What is known about Al Zahrawi is contained in his only written work: At-Tasrif liman 'Ajiza 'an at-Ta'lif (The Method of Medicine). At-Tasrif is a medical encyclopedia compendium of 30 volumes compiled from medical data that Al-Zahrawi accumulated in a medical career that spanned five decades of teaching and medical practice. It included sections on surgery, medicine, orthopedics, ophthalmology, pharmacology, nutrition etc.

At-Tasrif contains many original observations of historical interest. In it, El Zahrawi elaborates on the causes and symptoms of disease and theorizes on the upbringing of children and youth and on the care of the aged and convalescent. In the section on pharmacology and therapeutics, he covers areas such as cardiac drugs, emetics, laxatives, cosmetology, dietetics, material medical, weights and measures and drug substitution.

 At-Tasrif was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 12th century and alongside Avicenna's Canon, played a major role as a medical text in the universities of Europe from the 12th to the 17th century AD. Two of El Zahrawi's treatises deserve special mention. Firstly his 28th treatise, known in Latin as Libber servitors de preparation Medici arum simplified, describes chemical preparations, tablet making, filtering of extracts and related pharmaceutical techniques. This treatise was printed in Venice in 1471 by Nicolaus Jensen.
                                        
Perhaps the most importance treatise is the one on surgery. This monumental work was the first in Arabic to treat surgery independently and in detail. It included many pictures of surgical instruments, most invented by El Zahrawi himself, and explanations of their use. There are approximately 200 such drawings ranging from a tongue depressor and a tooth extractor to a catheter and an elaborate obstetric device. The variety of operations covered is amazing. In this treatise El Zahrawi discussed cauterization, bloodletting, midwifery and obstetrics and the treatment of wounds. He described the exposure and division of the temporal artery to relieve certain types of headaches, diversion of urine into the rectum, reduction mammoplasty for excessively large breasts and the extraction of cataracts. He wrote extensively about injuries to bones and joints, even mentioning fractures of the nasal bones and of the vertebrae. In fact 'Kocher's method' for reducing a dislocated shoulder was described in At-Tasrif long before Kocher was born!
Once At-Tasrif was translated into Latin in the 12th century, El Zahrawi had a tremendous influence on surgery in the West.
In At-Tasrif, El Zahrawi expressed his concern about the welfare of his students whom he called "my children". He emphasized the importance of a good doctor patient relationship and took great care to ensure the safety of his patients and win their trust irrespective of their social status.
 El Zahrawi's clinical methods showed extreme foresight - he promoted the close observation of individual cases in order to establish the most accurate diagnosis and the best possible treatment. He insisted on compliance with ethical norms and warned against dubious practices adopted by some physicians for purposes of material gain. He also cautioned against quacks who claimed surgical skills they did not possess.
Some of Al-Zahrawi's accomplishments:
1.  Al Zahrawi was an expert in dentistry, and his book contains sketches of various instruments used thereof, in addition to a description of various important dental operations.
2. He discussed the problem of non-aligned or deformed teeth and how to rectify thesedefects.
3.  He developed the technique of preparing artificial teeth and of replacement of defective teeth by these.
4.   In medicine, he was the first to describe in detail the unusual disease, hemophilia.
5.   The first to describe clearly the hereditary circumstances surrounding hemophilia.
6.   He also described ligaturing of blood vessels long before Ambroise Pare.
7.  El Zahrawi was the first medical author to provide illustrations of instruments used in surgery.
8. El Zahrawi outlined the use of caustics in surgery, fully described tonsillectomy, tracheotomy and craniotomy- operations he had performed on a dead fetus.
9.  He explained how to use a hook to extract a polyp tiom the nose, how to use a bulb syringe he had invented for giving enemas to children and how to use a metallic bladder syringe and speculum to extract bladder stones.
10. In connection with the preparation of medicines, he has also described in detail the application of such techniques as sublimation and decantation.
11. He was the first to detail the classic operation for cancer of the breast, lithotrities for bladder stones, and techniques for removing thyroid cysts.
12.He was considered one of the early leading “plastic surgeon” as he performed many plastic surgery procedures.
13. Al Zahrawi has specialized in curing disease by cauterization and applied the technique to as many as 50 different operations.

 
The French surgeon Guy de Chauliac in his 'Great Surgery', completed in about 1363, quoted At-Tasrif over 200 times. El Zahrawi was described by Pietro Argallata (died 1423) as "without doubt the chief of all surgeons". Jaques Delechamps (1513-1588), another French surgeon, made extensive use of At-Tasrif in his elaborate commentary, confirming the great prestige of El Zahrawi throughout the Middle Ages and up to the Renaissance.

Al Zahrawi was the physician of King Al-Hakam-II of Spain. After a long medical career, full of rich and significant contributions, Al Zahrawi died in 1013 C.E. There can be no doubt that Al Zahrawi influenced the field of medicine and surgery very deeply and the principles he laid down were recognized as authentic in medical science, especially surgery, and these continued to influence the medical world for five centuries. According to Dr. Cambell (History of Arab Medicine), "Al Zahrawi’s principles of medical science surpassed those of Galen in the European medical curriculum".

Sumber: www.ismaili.net


Ulasan:

Abu al-Qassim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi merupakan pakar bedah muslim yang terhebat.  Walaupun pakar bedah dari Eropah sezaman dengannya tetap mengiktiraf beliau sebagai seorang pakar perubatan yang lebih baik dari Galen iaitu pakar bedah zaman awal.
            Beliau diiktiraf sebagai pakar bedah terbaik Islam kerana menggabungkan pengajaran dan kaedah Asia Tengah dan Greco-Roman klasik sehingga ke zaman kebangkitan dalam prosedur pembedahan dan perubatan.  Jika membaca sejarah kehidupan Al-Zahrawi  keseluruhan hidpunya dan kebijaksanaannya digunakan untuk pembangunan perubatan secara keseluruhan terutamanya dalam bidang pembedahan.  Beliau mempunnyai pengalaman yang banyak dalam melakukakan operasi pembedahan kepada mangsa perang dan kemalangan.  Al-Zahrawi percaya beliau dilahirkan di bandar El-Zahra 6 batu dari Cordoba antara tahun 936 dan 934.  Di sanalah tempat beliau tinggal, belajar dan mempraktikkan ehwal perubatan dan pembedahan.  Dalam bukunya yang bertajuk Al-Tasrif (kaedah perubatan) yang mengandungi 30 siri volume yang menekankan aspek pembedahan, perubatan, ortopediks, ophthalmology, pharmacology dan nutrisi.  Antara pencapaian Al-Zahrawi dalam bidang perubatan dan pembedahan ialah.
1.      Beliau pakar dalam bidang pergigian
2.      Beliau membincangkan masalah ketidak rataan susunan gigi dan penyelesaian masalah tersebut
3.      Beliau membangunkan teknik menggantikan gigi yang tidak tersusun
4.      Dalam perubatan, beliau satu-satunya yang menjelaskan tentang masalah penyakit yang luar biasa iaitu, Hemophilia.
5.      Beliau mengklasifikasikan darah lama sebelum Amboire Pare
6.      Beliau penulis perubatan pertama yang menghasilkan ilustrasi sebagai panduan ketika pembedahan
7.      Beliau mencirikan kegunaan caustics dalam pembedahan, perincian dalam tonsillectomy, tracheotomy, dan craniotomy
8.      Beliau menerangkan bagaimana penggunaan cangkuk untuk mengekstrakkan polyp tiom, bagaimana menggunakan bulb syringe.
9.      Beliau orang pertama yang memperincikan operasi pembedahan Barah Payudara, Lithotrities untuk batu karang dan teknik mengeluarkan thyroid cysts.
10.  Beliau boleh dipertimbangkan sebagai antara individu terawal yang mengaplikasikan teknik pembedahan plastic kerana beliau selalu terlibat dalam operasi pembedahan plastic.

Pakar bedah dari Perancis, Guy de Chaulic dalam bukunya ‘Great Surgery’ yang telah lengkap pada tahun 1363 menggunakan rujukan At-Tasriff lebih dari 200 kali.  El Zahrawi dilambangkan oleh Pietro Argallata sebagai ‘tanpa ragu ketua kepada seluruh ahli bedah’













 

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