The ethical assumptions underlying the practice of medicine in Islam are inspired by two foundational texts: the Qurān, the divine message revealed to the Prophet Muḥammad; and the Sunnah, the paradigmatic life of the Prophet Muḥammad which complemented and exemplified the Quranic message. A secondary source of influence resulted from the Muslim conquest and expansion of the seventh to the eleventh centuries, when the cultural and scientific heritage of Antiquity was translated into Arabic and came selectively to be appropriated, refined and developed by Muslims. The integration of this heritage into Muslim civilization led to a new synthesis, not only of the science of medicine but also of the moral values supporting it. Although some of the medical traditions and values of Antiquity were sustained, they were set in Islamic contexts which allied their meaning and purpose to different goals.
The early centuries of Islam also represented a tremendous flowering of intellectual sciences....
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Nanji, A.A. (2008). Medical Ethics in Islam. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9784
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