Quick Facts
Biography
Ishāq bin Ali al-Rohawi (Arabic: إسحاق بن علي الرهاوي) was a 9th-century Arab physician and the author of the first medical ethics book in Arabic medicine.
His Ethics of the Physician contains the first documented description of a peer review process, where the notes of a practising Arab physician were reviewed by peers and the physician could face a lawsuit from a maltreated patient if the reviews were negative.
Al-Rohawi was probably from Al-Ruha, modern-day Şanlıurfa in Turkey, close to the border with Syria, which is often simply known as Urfa. He was born a Christian, possibly in the Nestorian offshoot, and may have still been Christian when he composed his works, despite the very strong influence of Islam on them. However, based on an analysis of his writings, a modern historian has challenged this notion, claiming that only a Muslim could have produced such texts.
Works
Al-Rohawi's most celebrated work is Adab al-Tabib ("Practical Ethics of the Physician" or "Practical Medical Deontology"), the earliest surviving Arabic work on medical ethics. Al-Rohawi regarded physicians as "guardians of souls and bodies". The work was based on Hippocrates and Galen and consisted of twenty chapters on various topics related to medical ethics.
He also wrote the following books:
- A compilation of first four books of Alexandrian Canons
- Introduction to Dialectics for Beginners
- On Examination of Physicians
He compiled two works based on Galen.