IBTIKAR USIM | JUN 2019

3 0 B i l . 7 J U N 2 0 1 9 They basically started with the Qur’an and hadith prior becoming proficient in various fields. Reflecting the journey of Ibnu Sina or widely known by the Westerns as Avicenna preceding being the ‘Father of Modern Medicine’ is genuinely inspiring. He travelled from one place to another to diversify his knowledge and he experienced being prisoned due to political turmoil. Identical to Imam As-Syafi’ee that memorised the Qur’an at a very early age of 7, Ibnu Sina also memorised the Qur’an at a young age of 10 years old. His deep interest in the knowledge of Medicine inspired him to also explore and being expert in philosophy, mathematics, metaphysics, geology, astronomy and many more areas. The evidence-based medicine approach that being preached by those in medical field came from systematic experimentation and quantification introduced by Ibnu Sina. One of his breakthrough medical text that made history The Canon of Medicine (Al-Canon fi al-Tibb) was a standard medical text being utilised globally up till the 19th century. Part of many great clinicians in the history of Islam that had successfully made breakthroughs in medicine and excelled in various fields include Al-Razi that was the first described smallpox and discovered allergic asthma, Al-Biruni that wrote Kitab al-Saidana fi al-Tibb, Al-Kindi provided first-hand scientific explanation for epilepsy, and Ibnu-Rushd that wrote the Kulliyyat a medical encyclopedia. They transcendence in the era of multiple limitations prove that there are no boundaries in gaining knowledge and doing research. Furthermore, their strength in the Qur’an and hadith demonstrate the beauty of Naqli and Aqli integration in the research of medicine. It is apparent that Muslim medical scholars contributed significantly in the medieval era. However, it is a devastating fact that in this 21st century, the field of health science or medicine has been dominated by the Western world. Exploring deeply on the particular issue, we may relate that early scholars were able to dominate due to the fact that they followed the inherent teachings from the Qur’an and Sunnah. Their focus was fixed towards bringing new knowledge to the benefits of mankind, thus they proved that the integration between multiple fields such as astronomy, mathematics, geology, and physics with medicine is important to come up with breakthrough findings. Ironically the world that we are living now has put clear separation between different field of knowledge, where those who tried to master distinct fields together will be marked as Jack of all trades, master of none. We must now realise that the idea behind Naqli and Aqli is to allow integrative research being conducted. It had been too long since the Muslim scholars had made a global breakthrough in research related to medicine. Muslim scholars nowadays must realise that is imperative for them to go beyond the norms by mastering multidisciplinary knowledge together and there is no such thing as knowledge segregation in bringing prosperous for the community. Thus, it is time for us in USIM to explore in depth the Naqli portion and explore multiple fields together to make a quantum leap in the medical discoveries.