(a.), medicine.
1. Medicine in the Islamic world.
Medical care in the Islamic world was pluralistic, with various practices serving different needs and sometimes intermingling. This medical pluralism allowed pre-Islamic traditional and magical practices to flourish alongside medical theories inherited from the Hellenistic world and drug lore acquired from India and elsewhere. The medical practices of pre-Islamic Arabia appear to have continued as the dominant form of care into the early days of the Umay…