Ireland: a parchment reveals the precious contributions of medieval Islamic medicine

In green Ireland, where life is good for most of the 65,000 Muslims who have taken up residence there, the discovery of a medieval manuscript dating from the 15th century, and written in Irish Gaelic, has brought to light how the prodigious Medical knowledge from the Islamic world had influenced the land of the three-leaf clover.

Ahead of their time, the knowledge acquired by doctors and other Muslim biologists of the Middle Ages constituted a precious mine of teachings, from which European and Irish doctors of the time drew, both to deepen their own research and enrich the courses given to young students.

“ We discovered that Irish doctors, during the 1400s, exploited the medical knowledge of Muslim doctors and biologists from the Islamic world “, underlined Professor Pádraig Ó Macháin, during a highly anticipated press conference.

This eminent researcher has shed light, thanks to the meticulous study of an ancient parchment, dealing with the physiology of the jaws, nose and back, the undeniable medico-scientific domination, close to fascination, exercised in Europe in general, and Ireland in particular, Muslim scholars of the golden age of Islam.

In the light of his research carried out within the department of the National University of Ireland, he also affirmed that the impressive encyclopedia of the illustrious Avicenna, alias Ibn Sina, entitled “ Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb » Or “ Canon of Medicine » and translated into Latin, was for a long time a reference manual used in Ireland, in the medieval era, in particular to train the best of Irish and European doctors.

In front of journalists who were all ears, Professor Pádraig Ó Macháin paid tribute to the erudition of two great medieval Muslim minds who enlightened the West with their lights: the Moroccan geographer Al-Idrissi, who was the first, in 1154, to make mention of Ireland in his remarkable “book of distant journeys” or Tabula Rogerianaand the immense Persian philosopher and physician Ibn Sînâaka Avicenna, who was the first scientist to describe the different parts of the eye in great detail.