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The Traditional Healer's Handbook: A Classic Guide to the Medicine of Avicenna

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An indispensible work on Unani medicine

Fulbright Research Scholar and naturopathic physician Hakim Chishti studied traditional healing in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, and, in addition to this present work is also the author of "The Book of Sufi Healing" (Healing Arts Press, 1991).

While conducting research in Kabul, Afghanistan, the author found himself afflicted with a severe form of dysentery and - without access to Western medicine - availed himself of the care of a traditional Unani practitioner, Dr. Hajji Muhammad Sherif, whose traditional treatments were successful and to whom Dr. Chishti eventually became an apprentice. Whilst in Kabul, the author obtained a Persian language edition of Avicenna's Mizan-ul-Tibb (Canon of Medicine) and Rabat-ul-Atfal (Pediatrics) and translated both volumes into English. These form the basis of the present work.

This comprehensive guide to healing synthesizes the principles and practices of that amalgam of Greek, Chinese, Ayurvedic, and Persian medicine that today is practiced throughout the South Asian subcontinent under the name `Unani al-tibb' (i.e., Ionian or Greek medicine). It includes his translation of the two works cited above of Avicenna (Ibn al Sina, born ca. 980 CE), whose writings have been classics in herbal and dietetic medicine for more than a thousand years. Unani Medicine as a healing system was established and institutionalized by Avicenna (known as the "Prince of Physicians") yet because it is a comprehensive system encompassing virtually all of the known healing systems of the world of his day, the threads which comprise Unani can be traced uninterruptedly all the way back to Hippocrates and his disciples.

Based on the philosophy that "food is the best medicine" and that "Allah never sends a disease to humankind without providing its cure," Avicenna's Canon of Medicine provides simple and effective diagnostic techniques and therapies for maintaining and restoring health and strengthening the human organism, in particular its immune system. The book includes a detailed botanical guide for the hundred most commonly used medicinal herbs and recommended treatments for four hundred conditions, including diet and nutrition, lifestyle management, herbal therapy, and aromatherapy. Medicine and health care were perhaps the highest scientific achievements of the Muslims during the Middle Ages and the reason for such an achievement is directly related to Islam itself, both the Qur'an and the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) strongly encouraging the gaining and scientific systematization of medical knowledge.

Chishti builds on Avicenna's approach, bringing extensive knowledge of the original Persian texts to his own twenty years' experience in Unani medicine. Included is a wealth of information on the metabolic value of foods, principles of hygiene, the prophylactic and curative roles of physical exercise and rest, the cycles, natures and classification of fevers, the classification of pain syndromes and the scope and methods of pulse diagnosis.

Subtitled "A Classic Guide to the Medicine of Avicenna," the Traditional Healer's Handbook includes a detailed introduction to Unani medicine's history, philosophy and ethics, theoretical scietific underpinnings, observations on the general practice of traditional medicine, and a materia medica of Unani botanicals along with a formulary.

Avicenna's healing system is explained and elaborated with recipes to maintain optimal immune functioning and includes protocols for the specific treatment of insomnia, depression, influenza, obesity, hemorrhoids, erectile dysfunction, dental pathologies, gastrointestinal disorders, asthma, bronchitis, and arthritis, among others.

Hakim Chishti has distilled the essence of this venerable and quite effective lineage of the healing art into a comprehensive text, clearly and engagingly written. It is an indispensable work for anyone interested in the field and I strongly commend it to anyone engaged in the study or practice of natural medicine, herbalism or any of the great healing lineages of Asia and the Middle East, and as well to students of Islam and Islamic contributions to world civilization.

Hakim G. M. Chishtis' book on traditional Greek-Arabic medicine is excellent. Other reviews have underscored its merits. This reviewer has already benefitted from applying e.g. the detoxication diet and some of the other dietetic information.

Hakim Chishti is remarkably broad-minded and conciliatory in his approach. Even his detoxication diet is quite broad compared to several other like-named regimes. He acknowledges the usefulness of allopathic medicine in several areas.

Of particular benefit to this reviewer are the clear presentations of the basic vocabulary and underlying principles of the Greek-Arabic medicine that was practised in Europe until into the 20th century and was the leading school until the 19th.

Although Hakim Chishti does not stress this, it is clear from his text that the fundamental ideas of Unani-Tibb, e.g. the four elements, the four qualities and the four humours, are pure archetypes, not specific physical substances. The latter merely reflect and manifest the former.

Perhaps an editor's error, Table 5, mentioned at the bottom of page 80, to provide the Tibb and Chinese terminologies for pulse diagnosis, is missing from the book. The Table 5 on page 40, Breath and Emotions, has a different subject.

In this reviewer's humble opinion, Hakim Chishti glosses over some basic issues pertaining to the export of Unani-Tibb to northern climatic zones in which, for example, many of the food and medicinal plants used in Indian Unani-Tibb simply do not grow north of about 45 degrees, e.g. rice. The applicability of substantial parts of the practice to northern or comparable cool climatic zones in the southern hemisphere are thus subject to some reservation.

For example, Hakim Chishti highly recommends basmati rice produced in the Indian subcontinent. He glosses over both the climate compatibility and the ecological (petroleum consumption for heavy weight food staples) issues.

Although highly critical of the suboptimal warmth balance of northern European diets compared to classical Asian ones, Hakim Chishti fails to suggest how a better balance could be achieved using plants and animals native to central and northern Europe.

Adaptation of its methods to cool and cold climates is thus an important area where Unani-Tibb research and creativity could be put to excellent use!

This book is very good. It offers methods to help one to observe health status by observing various bodily functions. Unfortunately, I have been able get more information in this approach to medicine. There are some very healthful and tasty receipes in this book also. Imani Christi's offers a very wholistic approach to health maintenance and way of living.

This is an excellent reference written in a very good and easy to understand language. It provides basic concepts of Unani Tibb/Islamic Medicine. I have not completely read the book yet, but whatever I have read so far, I like it.