User:Mellifluous7/History of medicine

Building Upon Islamic World in the Main Article:
Islamic civilization's contribution to these fields within medicine was a gradual process that took hundreds of years. Dating back to the time of the first great Muslim dynasty, the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 CE), there was not an abundance of medical understanding in these fields that were in their very early stages of development. A factor why that there was not a strong push for medical advancements is because of how the population handled diseases and illnesses. This was influenced by the direction, energy, and resources that the early Umayyad caliphs directed after the death of Prophet Muhammad (632 CE) towards spreading Islam to the nations that they invaded and the expansion of their caliphate. Because of this effort from the growing dynasty towards the expansion of Islam, there was not nearly as much effort that was given towards medicine. Rather, the Umayyad Caliphate after taking over the Caliphate wanted to foremost establish control over the new empire. The priority on these factors led a dense amount of the population to believe that God will provide cures for their illnesses and diseases because of the attention on spirituality. There were also many other areas of interest during that time before there was a rising interest in the field of medicine. Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the fifth caliph of the Umayyad, developed governmental administration, adopted Arabic as the main language, and focused on many other areas. However, this rising interest in Islamic medicine grew significantly when the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258 CE) overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate in 750 CE. This change in dynasty from the Umayyad Caliphate to the Abbasid Caliphate served as a turning point towards scientific and medical developments. A big contributor to this is because, under Abbasid rule, there was a great part of the Greek legacy that was transmitted into Arabic which by then, was the main language of Islamic nations. Because of this, many Islamic physicians were heavily influenced by the works of Greek scholars of Alexandria and Egypt and were able to further expand on those texts to produce new medical pieces of knowledge. This period of time is also known as the Islamic Golden Age where there was a period of development for development and flourishments of technology, commerce, and sciences including medicine. Additionally, during this time the creation of the first Islamic Hospital in 805 CE by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad was recounted as a glorious event of the Golden Age. This hospital in Baghdad contributed immensely to Baghdad's success and also provided educational opportunities for Islamic physicians. During the Islamic Golden Age, there were many infamous Islamic physicians that paved the way for medical advancements and understandings. Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (965-1040 CE), sometimes referred to as the father of modern optics, is the author of the monumental Book of Optics and also was known for his work in differentiating smallpox from measles. However, this would not be possible without the influence from many different areas of the world that influenced the Arabs.