Have you ever wondered why early Muslims scholars pay more attention to the study and treatment of vision/eye compared to the study and treatment of auditory/ears? This is most probably due to two reasons: (1) its frequent mentioning in the Qur’an and (2) as said by Tschanz (2001) due to the frequent cases of eye disease (including blindness) occurred at a hot and dusty desert during their time. In other words, early Muslims scholars had played their role as khalifah/vicegerent according to both the theoretical and practical importance of the issues/phenomena.
This does not mean, however, that hearing is not important in the Islamic tradition. The auditory system or hearing has a special place in the Qur’an in that, whenever it (al-sam`) is paired with vision (al-basr), it is always mentioned first (see examples of Qur’anic verses in previous posting). This, according to Al-Najati (1987), may due to several reasons: Read the rest of this entry »