Arab Medicine was based on the Materia Medicae of these medical traditions it developed its own system with a unique theory.
The basic framework of Arab medical tradition consists of the "Four Humours" theory of Hippocrates which presupposes the presence in the body of Four Humours ; blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile1. The body is regarded as comprising the following:
Arkan – Elements comprising the different states of matter.
Mizaj – The bodily temperament.
Akhlat – The structural components.
Ada – The fully developed components.
Ruh – The vital force or the life force.
Quwwa – The bodily power.
Afal – The corporeal functions.
Among these seven working principles, Mizaj or temperament occupies an important place in Unani Medicine and forms the basis of pathology, diagnosis and treatment.
The most important characteristic feature of Unani Medicine is that matter and spirit, the main constituent elements of the body are viewed as one single entity, because it is only when the balance is maintained in respect of the body and spirit, and the physical and spiritual elements function in a balanced manner that harmonious life is ensured. The disease is the manifestation of the imbalance of the humours which disrupt the harmonious functioning of the body and drugs are meant to restore the imbalance2.
With the spread of Islam in India, Greco – Arab medical system which developed in the Islamic world with its unique features, enriched by the contributions of medical scholars like Al-Tabari (838 – 970 AD), Al-Razi (864-930 AD) and Ibn Sina or Avicenna (980 – 1031 AD) came to India where it witnessed further development in its present form of Unani Tibb and Unani physicians formed an important component of the social landscape of the Indian Muslim society. They were known as Hakims and held a respectable place in Society. They practiced medicine with due emphasis on the psycho-spiritual personality of the patient, because Unani Medicine is based on the principal that human body composed of matter and spirit, and therefore aimed at maintaining a proper balance between the physical and spiritual functions of the body.
It is very difficult to trace the period in which Unani Medicine was introduced to Sri Lanka, but one may safely assume that this medical tradition would have found its way to Sri Lanka along with the spread of the Arab settlements in the 9th and 10th centuries in the coastal areas. Though, there were already Ayurwedic and Sidda medical traditions in Sri Lanka which were very widely practiced, in the port settlements of the Muslims Unani Medicine was predominant, and from the coastal areas later it spread to the interior.
There is a tradition to the effect that in the 10th century prince Jamaluddin, the son of the Sultan of Konya in Asia Minor settled in Beruwala as a physician and his descendents continue to live in this settlement3.
It is interesting to observe in this respect the observations made by Sir. Alexander Johnston about some of the medical treatises of Avicenna that he had seen in the possession of some Muslim families in Sri Lanka. Under the Abbasids their capital Baghdad witnessed an unprecedented intellectual awakening that culminated under the patronage Abbasid Caliph Al-Mamun (813-833 A.D.). Within three quarter centuries after the founding of Baghdad, the Arab speaking world was in possession of most of the medical works of Greeks, Persian and Indian. The works of Galen, Hippocrates and others were translated into Arabic in Bait ul Hikma an institution founded by Al-Mamun. The period of translation was followed by one of creative activity. Al-Razi who was known as Rhazes in the West and Ali ibn Sina popularly known as Avicenna were most illustrious names in Arab medical history 4 .
The Muslims of Sri Lanka due to the close relationship they had with Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate during this period seems to have been familiar with these medical works and was also sufficiently proficient in Arabic to the extend of understanding these works. Sir Alexander Johnston who was the chief justice during the British period refers to an incident with confirms this fact.
"One of the principal works on medicine which they introduced into Ceylon was the works of Avicenna. They also introduced Arabic translations of Aristotle, Euclid, Galen and Ptolemy, extracts of which were frequently brought to me while I was in Ceylon by the Mohammedan priests and merchants who stated that the works themselves had originally been procured from Baghdad by their ancestors and remain for hundreds of years in the respecting families"5.
Moreover, the commercial contacts the Arab settlers had with the Muslim world enabled them to obtain the necessary drugs for Unani Medicine from the Arab world. Sassanian Islamic storage jars approximately dating from the 7th to the 9th centuries had been found among the ruins of the ancient hospital site at Mihintale in Anuradhapura. It is generally assumed that Unani drugs were imported to Sri Lanka from Arabia and Persian Gulf in these containers6. They were also able to obtain locally medical herbs that were used for Unani drugs as many of them were available in Sri Lanka. It is pertinent to mention in this regard that Arab geographers and travelers mentions about the medical herbs as one of the important items exported from Sri Lanka. Al-Isthakri an Arab geographer of 10th century mentions about the medical herbs exported from Sri Lanka. Yakut al Hamawi (d. 1229 AD) and Al Qazwini (d. 1287 AD) speaks about the medical herbs of Sri Lanka and their export7.
Unani Medical system was preserved in the family of Hakims as a family tradition and the textbooks and pharmocorpia transmitted from generation to generation. Some of these Hakims in Sri Lanka trace their ancestry to Arab migrants who came to Sri Lanka in the 13th and 14th centuries bringing with them the medical and scientific knowledge that existed in the Islamic world.
From the coastal settlements in the West, Unani Medicine in course of time spread to the interior region and to the East coast. When Muslims were expelled from the coastal area by Portuguese and later Dutch many of them were allowed to settle in the Kandyan Kingdom and along the East coast by Sinhala kings, and we may assume that many of these migrants groups must have included Unani physicians and many of the Kandyan kings invited them to their Kingdom. It is said that king Senarat (1604-1635) and his son Rajasinghe II made two land grants to Sultan Kuttiya a Unani Physician who was originally practicing in Galle and was made to settle down in Kandy. He is stated to have served in the royal court8.
The Gopala Muslims of Gataberiya in the Kegalle district is one of these illustrious families of Hakims who traces their ancestry to a Hakim, royal physician of the Muwahhid dynasty of Muslim Spain. The family traces its genealogy to Abu Bakr Muhammad bin Al Malik Muhammad ibn Thufail who functioned as the court physician to the Al Muwahhid Sultan Abu Yakub Yususf (1163-1184 AD) 9. According to the prevailing tradition two of the male descendents of Ibn Thufail were living in the town called Gope in the Sind province in North India. It is stated that they were ordered by the ministers of Delhi Sultan to leave for Sri Lanka at the invitation of Parakramabahu II (1231-1270 AD) of Dambadeniya. The king is set to have suffered from an acute disease which made him to entrust his royal duties to a minister and later his son. It may be assumed that under these circumstances that he had made this request to Delhi sultan to send two Unani physicians to attend on him10. They were known as Gopala after the town of their residence. It is said that these two physicians were first settled in the coastal area and later summoned by the king of Kandy and made settled down there11. They saved as physicians to Sinhala royalty and earned their reputation. An interesting incident is narrated by a former commissioner of archeology H.C.P. Bell which testifies to their expertise in medicine; a king of Kandy having heard of their medical skills requested them to treat the queen, but before doing so, in order to test their medical knowledge the king is stated to have adopted the following plan. The patient was placed in a room, so that the physician could not see her and he was not allowed to feel the pulse of patient, instead a string was fastened to a door bar inside the room and the other end of the string was given to the physician, but the physician after feeling the string said that it had not been tied to a patient but to an inanimate object, after this when it was tied to a dog he immediately recognized it was tied to a beast. After being convinced of the skill of the physician the king ordered that the string be tied to the queen's wrist, on touching other end of the string the physician diagnosed the disease, treated and cured the queen. The king conferred on the physician the office of Betge Muhandra (Head of the Department of Royal Physicians) and bestowed on him lands in Parankuru Korale, Dumbara, Matale and Yatinuwara and a Nindagam along with the title Vaidyatialke Rajakaruna Gopala Mudaliyar12.
During the rule of Kirti Sri Rajasinghe (1747-1780 AD), Gopala Mudaliyar attained a prominent position. He headed the king's Betge and served him utmost loyalty. Impressed by one of his acts of loyalty which saved his life he gave him the Gataberiya copper plate Sannasa13. The original Sannasa is still in the position of the family of S.M. Ahmed Udayar. It is also reported that two Sannasas at present with the descendents of the Udayar family are only a portion of over thirty Sannasas granted to the members of the family of Gopala Mudaliyar at various periods14. According to H.C.P Bell the family was in possession of some implements of surgery made of iron, steel and brass for excising wounds and cauterization15.
During the period of Rajadirajasinghe (1782 – 1798 AD) in 1786 Boowelikade Vedaralalge Abu Bakkar Pulle was the physician in the king's Betge and he attended the queen and was rewarded with lands from Daskara16.
Even during the Dutch and British periods there were Muslim families of Unani physicians whose skills were recognized by the government. A report submitted to the secret proceedings of the Dutch Political Council in 1762 mentions a Muslim physician who lived in Kirivandala of Hewgamkorale. He treated the son of Dumbara Dissawa and attained much fame. The fact that he was able to move freely in both Kandyan and Dutch territories indicates his popularity in both areas17.
During the Dutch period they built hospitals to serve their forces and in 1791 Meera Lebbe Mestriar Seka Marikkar and Sarrek Lebbe were appointed as physicians. Meera Lebbe Mestriar attained great fame during the British period, in 1806 the chief justice of the British government, Sir Alexander Johnston appointed him as native superintendent of the medical department18. Meera Lebe Mestriar was not only a skilled physician but also had an abiding interest in research. It is said that he compiled a detailed report of all plants in Sri Lanka which had been used for medical purposes by Muslim Physicians in the island. It was the keen interest taken by him in this regard prompted Sir. Alexander Johnston to suggest to the British government in 1810, the establishment of Royal Botanical Gardens which was initially planned for the cultivation of medical and edible plants19.
Unani which was the medical system that originally practiced by the Muslims witnessed a decline during the later period due to many historical reasons. The major factor was the arrival of the Portuguese and Dutch which disturbed the peaceful social life and the commercial activities of the Muslims, and they were expelled from their original settlements in the coastal areas which resulted in their movement towards the Kandyan Kingdom and the Eastern coast. In the Kandyan Kingdom as it has been already noted above the Muslim physicians served the Kandyan kings with loyalty and bestowed with high positions and honour. But the Unani physicians encountered the major difficulty of obtaining the necessary drugs from Persian Gulf countries during the colonial period which made them to employ Ayurwedic herbs and Ayurweda began to influence Unani system which began to loose it pure form. But Unani continued to be practiced in its pure form in traditional families. As Unani was a family tradition passed on from one generation to another with the succeeding generations loosing interest in the system, Unani gradually lost its hold on society. As the Unani physicians in Sri Lanka did not have a close contact with the Unani practices in the other regions especially in the Indian Subcontinent, where it still held its supremacy, there was no scope fresh development in the field of Unani Medicine in Sri Lanka, though in continued to have traditional practitioners in the rural areas.
The Unani Medicine in Sri Lanka found a new lease of life with the establishment of the College of Indigenous Medicine in Colombo in 1929 in which Unani was accommodated along with Ayurweda and Sidda.
There must be an organized and serious effort by the Muslims to preserve and develop the Unani Medical tradition infusing a new life and engaging in research to ensure its development. In this respect it is beneficial to establish contacts with Hamdard Foundation of India and Pakistan which at present has attained international repute as an institution for the promotion of traditional medicine.
REFERENCES
Edward G. Browne, Islamic Medicine, New Delhi, 2001, p.121
Hakeem Mohamed Said, “Traditional Treatment in Central Asia and Pakistan”, Hamdard Medicus, Baitul Hikmah, Karachi, July-September 1994, Vol. XXXVII, p.41
3.An Ethnological Survey of the Muslims of Sri Lanka from earliest Times to Independence, Colombo, 1986, p.5
6.Lorna Dewaraja, The Muslims of Sri Lanka – One Thousand Years of Ethnic Harmony (900 – 1915), Colombo, 1994, p.128
Philip K. Hitty, History of Arabs, London, 1958, p.364
Sir Alexander Johnston's Footnotes to his Dispatch to the Secretary of State dated 3rd February 1827, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Vo.1, p.537
Imam, S.A, “Ceylon Arab Relations”, MICH First Twenty Five Years' Souvenir, Colombo, 1965, p.31
Lorna Dewaraja, op. cit, p.91
Carra de Vaux, B, Article on "Ibn Thufail", in Encyclopeadia of Islam, Leiden, 1979, Vol.3, p.957
Lorna Dewaraja, op. cit, p.129
Kotalawele, D.A, "Muslims Under Dutch Rule in Sri Lanka", in M.A.M. Shukri (Ed) Muslims of Sri Lanka – Avenues to Antiquity, Colombo, Jamiah Naleemiah, 1986, p.174
Lorna Dewaraja, op. cit, p.130
Lorna Dewaraja, op. cit, p.132
Ahamed Udayar, S.M, “Sri Lanka Moor Physicians (Hakeems) to the Sinhala Kings”, MICH First Twenty Five Years' Souvenir, Colombo, 1977-1982, Vol. IV, p.171
Bell, H.C.P, Report on the Kegalle District, Colombo, 1904, p.99
Lorna Dewaraja, op. cit, p.132
Kotalawele, D.A, op. cit., p.175
MICH 1965, p.55
Lorna Dewaraja, op. cit, p.134
Source: www.Drshukri.net
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