A Survey of Health Factors According to Iranian Medicine

Background and Aim: Iranian medicine is a school of medicine that emphasizes health maintenance and disease prevention using material and spiritual techniques inspired by the teachings of Islam and Ahl al-Bayt or household members of Prophet Muhammad (PBUT). In this paper, the prominent health factors in Iranian Islamic medicine are enumerated and reviewed. Reviving and applying these recommendations can significantly decrease diseases and promote health worldwide.
Methods: With reference to authoritative sources of Islamic medicine including the encyclopedia of medical hadiths (traditions), Helyatol motaghin, and Imam Reza’s (PBUH) treatise, the major topics or themes related to health are collected and stated along with multiple examples from each field.
Results: Based on Islamic teachings, treatment is not in doing sinful acts, prohibited in the religion; the emphasis is on prevention and treatment is the next step. The basis of health and recovery is temperament (four humors) and proper diet and abstinence have a central role. Foods, medicines, mores, conduct, and spiritual factors are tools for prevention and cure. In other words, health maintenance requires multi-faceted control of body and soul (including air and climate measures, motion and rest, sleep and wake, foods and drinks, evacuation and retention, and spiritual interactions).
Conclusion: Iranian medicine is a comprehensive school of medicine. A broad range of material and spiritual recommendations even in the least important aspects of individual and social life which might seem trivial at first glance is indicative of the holistic view of this medical school and scarcity of research on these recommendations. It is recommended that fundamental research be carried out on various components of this medicine so that it could provide background for the practical revival and wide application of these axioms, taken from the certain knowledge of the Ahl al-Bayt (PBUT), in the health care and lifestyle system of Iran and the world.