Rhazes’ pioneer viewpoints about psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience

Abstract

After the emergence of Islam and its advancement in the past three centuries in various countries and the Muslims' acquaintance with civilizations emanating from the empires of Iran, Greece, and India, a civilization emerged that affected different aspects of people's lives in Islamic lands and other countries. One of the components of this civilization was medical sciences that were collected and compiled by Muslims using the resources of other civilizations and their own experiences and resources. Rhazes (Muhammad ibn Zakaryyā al-Rāzī), who lived in the ninth century AD (fourth century AH), compiled a comprehensive textbook of medicine (named in Arabic: Al-Hawi fi al-Tibb) in all specialized medical disciplines in accordance with the latest achievements of his era. This book has been published in the contemporary period as a 25-volume collection and contains knowledge and experiences from the medical resources of various civilizations and Rhazes’ own knowledge and experiences. The first volume of this collection and some other volumes are devoted to the knowledge of neuroscience, psychiatry, and related diseases, illnesses, and disorders. In this review, we cite topics from "Al-Hawi" and other Rhāzes’ manuscripts related to the definition and description of diseases and disorders associated with the nervous system as well as psychiatry and neurology and compare them with modern medical sciences in a comparative manner. This is intended to make their importance and validity clear in terms of usability as part of medical history as well as for some medical research that requires historical and contextual information.