Medical Sciences Specializations in Buyid Era

The history of medicine in Iran goes back to the pre-Islam era. The first medical education center named Jundi Shapur University, which played a major role in formation and development of medical sciences, was founded during the Sassanid rule. This university continued to be a thriving scientific center after the Arabs’ conquest of Persia but after two centuries of chaos and disorder when the Abbasids took power, the accomplishments of this university were virtually transferred to the center of the Muslim world. Medicine after the advent of Islam was enhanced with the merging of several scientific categories including Greek, Hippocrates and Galen’s medicine, and developed with the support of the rulers of the time such as Harun al-Rashid and Ma’mun. Gradually, the Muslim world physicians managed to write independent medical works and the first steps on this path were taken in the form of comprehensive and general encyclopedias. With the advent of the Buyid Dynasty whose rulers supported this field of science, grounds were set for specialization of medicine and emergence of new branches of this science. Therefore, understanding the status of medicine in the Buyid era, which was relying on change and specialization-based developments, is of paramount importance.