Page 133 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

952 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

A Monarch’s Misrule Can
Bring on Calamities

“Those who are wronged are sighing and crying
be printed (as opposed to transcribed by hand). The and they deeply affect the harmonious atmos-
Qanun became the preeminent medical encyclopedia of phere. When the harmonious atmosphere is in
the Western world, eclipsing the works of other famous disorder, the living will be subject to epidemics
physicians such as Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya’ and flood and drought will come next. . . Re-
al-Razi (known as “al-Razi”) (c. 865–c. 925 CE). By the cently the dry weather has extended beyond its
end of the sixteenth century, only seven years after its time, and there are clouds but no rain.The farm-
first printing, the Qanun passed through fifteen Latin ers lay down their implements, looking forward
editions and was also translated into Hebrew. By the without hope and clamoring. Would they not
end of the twentieth century the Qanun had finally been blame Your Majesty, who though She is sagely
translated into English. virtuous does not bestow kindness upon the peo-
Western history has not been particularly kind to Ibn ple? Now if the drought extends through the
Sina, whose contributions to medicine have largely been spring and makes the seasonal sowing impossi-
ignored and forgotten. At least two tributes remain: His ble, there must be a great loss in this year’s har-
portrait hangs in the Hall of the Faculty of Medicine in vest. Should Your Majesty not respectfully fol-
the University of Paris, and the British Museum has sev- low the will of Heaven and pity the people with
eral manuscript of Ibn Sina’s treatise on cardiac medicine Your kindness?”
and drugs. By contrast, the historical museum in Bukhara The Chinese believed that a monarch’s wise
displays many of his writings, surgical instruments from acts and merciful rule kept heaven, earth, and
the period when he practiced medicine, and paintings of humans in harmony. Natural calamities were re-
patients undergoing treatment.An impressive monument garded as heaven’s warning to a monarch for his
to the life and works of the man who became known as moral lapses or misrule, and unless the monarch
the Islamic “doctor of doctors” and changed the face of changed his ways and made amends, heaven will
medicine for centuries still stands outside the museum’s inflict further punishments or end its mandate.
central grounds. This memorial in the paragraph above was pre-
sented by a minister to Empress Wu (684-705)
Benjamin S. Kerschberg
to protest her policy of inflicting severe punish-
See also Science—Overview ments on critics and offenders. The point made
here was her improperly severe policy had angered
heaven and brought calamity on her people. She
Further Reading
did not accept the advice; historians have judged
Browne, E. G. (1921). Arabian medicine. London: Cambridge University
Press. her actions as wrong.
Goodman, L. (1992). Avicenna. New York: Macmillan. Source: Ch’u T’ung-tsu. (1961). Law and society in traditional China (p. 216).
Hitti, P. K. (1970). History of the Arabs. London: Macmillan. Paris: Mouton and Co.

impose its belief systems on another. This imposition is
Imperialism most often political but can also be cultural, religious,

economic, or even ecological. At its core imperialism is
lthough many governments and political bodies defined by power relationships and the ability of one
Ahave been labeled “empires” throughout world his- group to assert some form of power or control over
tory, the related term imperialism today refers to a set of another. Historians who examine imperialism tend to
ideological principles whereby one group sets out to study either one aspect of this power or one concrete