Al-Ruhawi
Ishāq ibn ʻAlī al-Ruhāwī (Arabic: إسحاق بن علي الرهاوي) was a 9th-century Arab physician and the author of the first medical ethics book in Islamic medicine.[1]
His Ethics of the Physician contains the first documented description of a peer review process, where the notes of a practising Islamic physician were reviewed by peers and the physician could face a lawsuit from a maltreated patient if the reviews were negative.[2]
Al-Ruhawi was probably from Al-Ruha, modern-day Şanlıurfa in Turkey, close to the border with Syria, which is often simply known as Urfa.[3] He was born a Christian, possibly in the Nestorian offshoot, and may have still been Christian when he composed his works, despite the very strong influence of Islam on them.[3][4] However, based on an analysis of his writings, a modern historian has challenged this notion, claiming that only a Muslim could have produced such texts.[5]
Works
Al-Ruhawi's most celebrated work is Adab al-Tabib ("Practical Ethics of the Physician" or "Practical Medical Deontology"), the earliest surviving Arabic work on medical ethics. Al-Ruhawi regarded physicians as "guardians of souls and bodies". The work was based on Hippocrates and Galen and consisted of twenty chapters on various topics related to medical ethics.[3]
He also wrote the following books:[5]
- A compilation of first four books of Alexandrian Canons
- Introduction to Dialectics for Beginners
- On Examination of Physicians
He compiled two works based on Galen.[3]
References
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