Prophetic traditions and modern medicine in the Middle East: resurrection, reinterpretation, and reconstruction.

• Author: Ragab, Ahmed
• Position: Critical essay

INTRODUCTION

In a 1997 edition of al-Suyuti's (1) treatise on the plague, which was composed in the fifteenth century, the actual treatise occupies only one-third of the volume; the rest of the volume comprises a number of chapters written by the editor, Muhammad Ali al-Baz, that function as a parallel text engaging with al-Suyuti's treatise on different levels. In his chapters re-creates the history and the significance of the treatise and presents the content and context of the edited work in an altered manner. This edition belongs to a genre of writings in which medieval texts originally written by important scholars of religion and addressing questions of "Prophetic medicine" are edited (in the sense of modified), drawn into debate, and republished.

This article traces how the intellectual authority of the primary author is reformulated and how his text is reproduced in the framework of a modern medical discourse. (2) This entails a close look at the perceived and formulated epistemic value of the primary text, which lies at the heart of the editing process regardless of the intellectual tradition to which it belongs. The editing process requires by definition the selection of a text to be edited and admits or argues for a specific value of such text, but the way this value is assigned and evaluated depends on the paradigmatic structure within which the editing is produced. (3)

I will argue that the secondary texts at hand represent an involvement with science and medicine that is largely determined by the authority of modern science and not by that of the primary text. In other words, the secondary text aims to give a contemporary legitimacy to the medieval text, and this process involves a heightened sense of scientific authority and a positivist and teleological view of the modern scientific paradigm, rooted in the intellectual environment, and not only the socio-political environment, of the secondary author. This allows for the re-creation of the scientific narrative in conditions different from those of its origin, permitting a new discourse that engulfs and amalgamates the scientific narrative with other narratives. It is also connected to the tradition of Prophetic medicine, which forms the genealogical background of the texts at hand.

In this article I analyze how the secondary texts and the discursive genre to which they belong negotiate the claims of authority of both the sacred and the primary texts--this is central to both the genre's formation and continuity and those of scientific discourse. (4) In this article the analysis of the texts at hand aims to understand the authority assigned to the modem scientific narrative. This analysis is not only important to understand the relation between science and Islam, but is also central to studying the relation between these religious discourses and different questions of modernity and modernization, which have been a subject of debate since the second half of the nineteenth century, albeit in different forms. (5)

The problem of competing intellectual authorities is central to all texts on Prophetic medicine, whether medieval or contemporary, though the proposed solutions are different and remain dependent on their respective intellectual and socio-political contexts. The literature of Prophetic medicine as it appeared throughout the medieval period in the writings of scholars as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350), (d. 1505), and Ibn Tulun (d. 1546), among others, (6) is dated by historians of medicine to the ninth century when one of the first known treatises of this kind was composed. (7) It became very popular starting from the fourteenth century, as evidenced by the sheer number of manuscripts and treatises composed during this period. (8)

I have argued (9) that these writings on Prophetic medicine appear to be an intellectual phenomenon and a discourse based on the relation between a Prophetic and a medical/Galenic narrative rather than a form or a paradigm of medical practice rooted in a relation between health and disease or a perception of normality, as is the case with other medical traditions or practices. This discourse created a fissure within the Prophetic narratives themselves with the inference that Muhammad's medical pronouncements have a lesser status than his religious ones, which alone enjoy the timeless authority and the sanction of holiness imbued by the character of the Prophet. The rest of the Prophetic corpus, or more accurately the parts related to medicine, are only additions, which are local, time-sensitive, and less credible. In this way traditions of Prophetic medicine are not engaged in a debate with the "truths" of medical theory, but are relegated to the status of relics of history and traditions of old, which must be revised, accepted or rejected, and arranged along the discursive rules of medical theory.

This place of medieval "Prophetic medicine" at the intersection of Prophetic and medical narratives is historically specific and is related to contemporaneous historical and socio-intellectual circumstances; it does not appear to dictate our secondary author's perception of Prophetic medicine. As will be shown below, secondary authors do not engage the epistemic differentiations presented in the primary text, but dismantle this medieval problematization of Prophetic and Galenic narratives to construct a new relationship with a different medical narrative. The solutions presented by the secondary authors are informed by their particular socio-intellectual context and the contemporary perception of the medical discourse.

The rise and spread of this secondary literature coincided with the waves of Islamist thought and the more religious atmosphere of the late 1970s and 80s, which was explained by many political scientists and sociologists to be linked in many instances to the socioeconomic and political shift in the Middle East during this period. (10) Emblematic of this shift included the appearance on television of religious personalities such as Muhammad Mutwali I-Sha'rawi, who explained the meaning of the Qur'an every Friday for many years and appeared in print several times.

Although this socio-political shift was not the motivating factor behind this literature, it did contribute to its spread. This literature has its ancestors in the works of Isma'il Mazhar, 'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi'i, and others in the early twentieth century, which appeared in such publications as the journal of al-Azhar and aimed at reconciling Islam and modern science through a scientific interpretation of the religious texts. This production coexisted with a movement for the popularization of science led by journals such as al-Muqtataf and Mamlakat al-nahl among others. (11)

Although organically connected to the same discourse, medicine represents a different case because it is seen as dependent on a different framework of authority and justification. Physics, astronomy, and evolutionary biology derive their legitimacy from the intellectual perception of science and its inherent value at the intellectual level, and argue for their validity and socio-cognitive significance depending either on direct technological application or on a modernist discourse framed around identity politics, which led to discussions of the connections of these sciences to socio-political agendas hostile to certain Islamic views. Medicine, on the other hand, is presented not as an abstract scientific construction, or an episteme, but rather as a techne. Modern medicine was constructed discursively with efficiency at heart and with its ability to produce observable, much needed benefits as its main argument of legitimacy. (12)

Thus, medicine was not presented as a theoretical endeavor, which required abstract justification or paradigmatic dialogue of modernization and identity, but as a technology, which can be judged only in relation to efficiency. Even as questions of appropriateness and conformity to religious discourse were raised, such as in relation to dissection, blood transfusion, and organ transplantation, the argument of usefulness was key and the notion of utility was the decisive factor. When certain medical practices such as in-vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and stem-cell research were not sanctioned by a religious authority, this did not affect medicine as a discourse because it was perceived as a technology, which can be taken and accepted piecemeal. (13) Owing to this view, medicine gained an outstanding legitimacy and its practitioners a significant epistemic authority on account of their training, skill, and expertise. (14)

In the following, the study of the negotiations of authority in contemporary collections of Prophetic medicine will include three main aspects: the perception of the primary text and its role in informing the identity of the secondary text (section one), the relation between the secondary text and modern medical discourse (section two), and the discursive strategies used by the secondary text in this process of negotiation (section three).

PERCEPTION OF THE PRIMARY TEXT AND ITS ROLE IN INFORMING THE IDENTITY OF THE SECONDARY TEXT

Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Mustafa Mahmud was a prominent speaker in various Arabic media. A physician, Mahmud claimed to have had a long journey with doubt, which ended with his recovering his faith and advocating a view of Muslim religion and Muslim religious texts as "compatible" with modern science. (15) This Mabrnud mostly did on his weekly TV show called al-'llm wa-l-iman (Science and Faith), which ran for 400 weeks in primetime on the first channel of the then two-channel Egyptian TV. As a complement to the show he published a number of books. In the introduction he wrote for an edition of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's al-Tibb al-nabawi, Mahmud reminds the reader of his relation to medicine, writing, "My relationship to medicine is a close and intimate...