Imaam al-Dhahabi wrote in
Al-Tibb al-Nabawi (Dar Ihyaa al-Uloom, Beirut, pp. 228-229):
Chapter: Regarding the Encouragement of Teaching medicine
His (alayhis salaatu was-salaam's) saying, "Allaah did not send down a disease except that it has a cure"
has already preceded. We say: This (hadeeth) necessitates the
mobilization the people's [lofty] concerns [for medicine] and incitement
of (their) determinations to learn medicine. And it has already preceded that medicine is a skill. Imaam al-Shaafi'ee said, "I don't know of a knowledge more noble than medicine after the halaal and haraam." And he used to be concerned (and grieved) over what the Muslims had neglected of medicine,
and he would say, "They have neglected one third of knowledge and have
entrusted it to the Jews and Christians." And he used to say, "Indeed
the Ahl al-Kitaab have dominated us with respect to medicine."
And al-Shaafi'ee, alongside his greatness in the knowledge of the
Sharee'ah, and his great skill in Arabic was also insightful in medicine. The writer (i.e. al-Dhahabi) says: And I have seen our Shaykh, Shaykh Ibraaheem al-Raqiyy to be insightful in medicine,
and likewise our Shaykh, Shaykh Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyyah, and Shaykh
Imaad al-Din al-Waasitee (rahimahullaau ta'aalaa) [were insightful in
medicine]. Hippocrates and others have said, "Medicine is inspired by Allaah," and Hippocrates
is the chief of this discipline. His school of thought regarding it is
the sound, correct school of thought. He was followed therein by Galen who is the leading scholar of this discipline as well, and both of them are venerated a great deal by the physicians.
