Understanding Mind/Body Medicine from Muslim Religious Practices of Salat and Dhikr.

There has been an increasing medical interest in Muslim religious practices in promoting well-being. Central to Muslim religious practices are salat (prayer) and dhikr (chanting). These two religious forms may be argued as comprising elements of mind/body medicine due to their positive effect on the psychoneuroimmunological response. The aim of this article was to further understand the mind/body aspects of Muslim salat and dhikr.

Islamic medicine and evolutionary medicine: a comparative analysis.

The advent of evolutionary medicine in the last two decades has provided new insights into the causes of human disease and possible preventative strategies. One of the strengths of evolutionary medicine is that it follows a multi-disciplinary approach. Such an approach is vital to future biomedicine as it enables for the infiltration of new ideas. Although evolutionary medicine uses Darwinian evolution as a heuristic for understanding human beings' susceptibility to disease, this is not necessarily in conflict with Islamic medicine. It should be noted that current evolutionary theory was first expounded by various Muslim scientists such as al-Jahiz, al-Tusi, Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Maskawayh centuries before Darwin and Wallace. In this way, evolution should not be viewed as being totally antithetical to Islam. This article provides a comparative overview of Islamic medicine and Evolutionary medicine as well as drawing points of comparison between the two approaches which enables their possible future integration.

Evolutionary origins of human brain and spirituality.

Evolving brains produce minds. Minds operate on imaginary entities. Thus they can create what does not exist in the physical world. Spirits can be deified. Perception of spiritual entities is emotional--organic. Spirituality is a part of culture while culture is an adaptive mechanism of human groups as it allows for technology and social organization to support survival and reproduction. Humans are not rational, they are emotional. Most of explanations of the world, offered by various cultures, involve an element of "fiat", a will of a higher spiritual being, or a reference to some ideal. From this the rules of behaviour are deduced. These rules are necessary to maintain social peace and allow a complex unit consisting of individuals of both sexes and all ages to function in a way ensuring their reproductive success and thus survival. There is thus a direct biological benefit of complex ideological superstructure of culture. This complex superstructure most often takes a form of religion in which logic is mixed with appeals to emotions based on images of spiritual beings. God is a consequence of natural evolution. Whether a deity is a cause of this evolution is difficult to discover, but existence of a deity cannot be questioned.

Changing ethics in medical practice: a Thai perspective.

The pace of social change in Thailand has seen the rise of various medical services and a global clientele. Currently, medical tourism and cosmetic surgery have an important role in medical practice here. A growing medical market offers a range of services at competitive rates and high levels of efficiency. This essay provides an overview of medical practices in Thailand and their effect on ordinary people.