Ibn al-Nafis al-Ash’ari was an Arab polymath whose areas of work included medicine, surgery, physiology, anatomy, biology, Islamic studies, jurisprudence, and philosophy. He is known for being the first to describe the pulmonary circulation of blood.
The work of Ibn al-Nafis regarding right-sided (pulmonary) circulation pre-dates the later work of William Harvey’s De motu cordis. Both theories attempt to explain circulation.
2nd-century Greek physician Galen’s theory about the physiology of the circulatory system remained unchallenged until the works of Ibn al-Nafis, for which he has been described as “the father of circulatory physiology”.
He was also appointed as the chief physician at al-Naseri Hospital founded by Sultan Saladin. Apart from medicine, Ibn al-Nafis studied jurisprudence, literature, and theology.
He was an expert on the Shafi’i school of jurisprudence and an expert physician. The number of medical textbooks written by him is estimated at more than 110 volumes.
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