مؤسسة الشرق الأوسط للنشر العلمي
عادةً ما يتم الرد في غضون خمس دقائق
Introduction: This study examines Ibn Khaldun's (1332-1406 CE) pioneering contributions to understanding social and environmental determinants of health, a dimension of his work that has received insufficient scholarly attention despite its remarkable prescience. While primarily recognized for his historical and sociological innovations, his observations on health determinants merit dedicated analysis within the history of public health thought. Methods: Through close textual analysis of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah, this research identifies and evaluates key passages related to health, disease, environment, and social structure. The study employs a comparative historical approach, contextualizing Ibn Khaldun's observations within medieval Islamic medicine while drawing connections to contemporary public health concepts. Results: Analysis reveals that Ibn Khaldun developed sophisticated understandings of how urbanization, climate, geography, nutrition, and social hierarchies influenced population health. His systematic comparison of urban and rural health patterns demonstrated awareness of lifestyle factors, environmental exposures, and social conditions as determinants of health outcomes. These insights anticipated concepts in social epidemiology by several centuries. Discussion: Ibn Khaldun's integration of health into a broader sociological framework represents an important intellectual achievement that extends our understanding of public health history beyond recent Western scholarship. His work demonstrates the value of interdisciplinary approaches to health and highlights the rich contributions of medieval Islamic scholarship to contemporary health sciences.