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Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in India on August 27th, 2012
In “The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case”, a three-part series beginning today, award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 2012 (IPS) – New Delhi police officials have released hundreds of pages of documents from their investigation into the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli Embassy car. The documents aimed to show that a well-known Indian Muslim journalist aided an Iranian conspiracy to plan and carry out the bombing.
But a review by IPS of the evidence filed in the case suggests that the Indian journalist accused in the case has been framed by the police, at least in part to implicate the Iranians in the terror plot.
The “charge sheet” on the embassy car bombing filed by the “Special Cell” (SC) of the Delhi police July 31 claims Indian journalist Syed Mohommed Ahmad Kazmi confessed to helping officials from Iran plan the bombing plot in return for payments totalling 5,500 U.S. dollars.
It also says that a moped used for reconnaissance by the Iranian said to have carried out the bombing was found in Kazmi’s residence and that forensic bomb-making evidence was discovered in the hotel room of that same Iranian.
But an analysis of the documentation included in the filing reveals that the evidence is highly questionable.
The SC has a long history of cases against alleged terrorists that were rejected by the court as involving framing people and planting false evidence.
Kazmi is an unlikely candidate for participation in an Iranian terrorist plot. A 50-year-old senior Indian journalist, he had his own web-based news service, a regular job as a columnist for the leading Urdu-language weekly and a retainer as Urdu newscaster for India’s state-owned television channel Doordarshan.
He did not need the 5,500 U.S. dollars police claim he received for helping the Iranians plan the bombing. Nor did he need the 2.26 million rupees (40,000 U.S. dollars) in foreign remittances that Delhi police chief B. K. Gupta asserted in a press conference in mid-March that the journalist and his wife had received in their bank accounts. Gupta declared that Kazmi and his wife had been “unable to explain” those remittances.
But Kazmi’s family has produced bank documents showing that the remittances had come from relatives in the UK and Singapore in 2009 and 2010. Furthermore, the “Economic Directorate” of the Indian Police assigned to investigate the remittances could find nothing incriminating in them, the Indian press has reported.
A more serious problem with the SC case is that it depends heavily on Kazmi’s alleged confession of guilt. That confession, consisting of five separate statements between Mar. 6 and 24, is inadmissible as evidence under Indian law on the assumption that police will inevitably coerce those in their custody to make confessions.
Kazmi has denounced all the “disclosure statements” attributed to him as false. He charged in a handwritten petition to the court Apr. 16 that the SC had coerced him into providing his signature on blank pages. He said the police threatened that his family with “dire consequences” if he did not do as they directed.
Except for the very first “disclosure statement” dated Mar. 6, all of them are followed by the handwritten notation “Accused refused to sign”.
Most of the five “disclosures” were clearly written by the Special Cell in order to implicate both Kazmi and three Iranians in the bombing plot. The disclosures make Kazmi appear eager to incriminate himself, even though the police account offers no reason for considering Kazmi a suspect, except that his mobile phone number was said to have been called by a Houshang Afshar Irani, who in turn was said to have been contacted by an Iranian involved in the Feb. 14 explosion in Bangkok.
The disclosure dated Mar. 6 and supposedly given to police before Kazmi was even under arrest confesses to having been informed of the plot for a bombing in Delhi by a Seyed Ali Mahdiansadr during a visit to Tehran in January 2011, and having agreed to help the plotters.
Kazmi is also portrayed in the statement as admitting to having been given a Kinetic brand moped by Irani for safekeeping at his home during the first week in May 2011. The police cite that statement as the justification for immediately arresting him and for allegedly seizing the moped from Kazmi’s residence.
There is good reason to believe that the police had already followed Irani’s trail during his two-week visit to Delhi in late April and early May 2011 and had learned before Kazmi’s arrest that he had purchased a used black Kinetic moped at a commercial showroom in Delhi on Apr. 26.
Kazmi’s family and lawyer Mehmood Pracha say the moped taken away from his residence Mar. 6 was not the one identified in the police “seizure memo”, which has the same identification number as found on the receipt for Irani’s purchase of the scooter, but one left by Kazmi’s brother two years ago and never used during that time.
The memo for the scooter is signed and dated by Deputy Chief of Police Sanjeev Yadav, the senior police official in the SC investigation, and one other officer. It is signed but not dated by a third officer. The fact that Kazmi’s signature is on the document without any date suggests that he signed a blank sheet of paper.
The Kinetic moped is crucial to the SC effort to link Kazmi to Irani’s alleged reconnaissance of the Israeli embassy to prepare for the bombing, because there is no other evidence except Kazmi’s own discredited “disclosures”. But the story about the moped raises serious questions about its plausibility.
It would have made no sense for a terrorist to purchase a moped for that purpose, since Kazmi owned a car that would have made the task far easier as well as more secure.
The alleged turnover of the moped to Kazmi by Irani at the end of his two-week visit makes even less sense, because it suggests that he was planning to use it again for the actual bombing operation. But someone contemplating an operation to affix a magnet bomb to a car would never have considered using a moped for the job. A Kinetic moped normally cannot go faster than 20 miles per hour and is notoriously poor in acceleration, making a getaway for the bomber highly problematic.
In the event, Irani rented a motorcycle when he returned, suggesting that had probably disposed of the moped by reselling it cheaply.
Another sign that the police had trouble linking Kazmi to Irani’s reconnaissance of the Israeli Embassy is the statement attributed to him in one of the “disclosures”. Whenever he met with Irani, his supposed disclosure says, “I used to leave my mobile phone at my residence.”
That sentence was evidently included to explain why a search of Kazmi’s mobile phone records would not reveal any activity in the area where the “disclosure” claims Kazmi and Irani were carrying out reconnaissance of the Israeli Embassy during Irani’s two-week stay.
The police used the same argument in a 2007 terrorism case in which they had alleged that the accused had taken a trip to Kashmir to collect explosives but had left his mobile phone at his guest house.
The Court did not find the assertion credible, however, and threw out the charges.
*This story is the first in a three-part series, “The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case”, in which award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.
Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in India on August 27th, 2012
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Call it unintended irony. But India’s Foreign Minister and National Security Adviser using a forum to discuss the resurrected Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan and the Holy Grail of nuclear disarmament to emphasise India’s devotion to nuclear deterrence is surely an oddity. What these officials said is worth quoting. SM Krishna, External Affairs Minister, said, “Nuclear weapons today are [an] integral part of our national security and will remain so, pending nondiscriminatory and global nuclear disarmament.” And, the National Security Adviser, Shiv Shankar Menon, observed that India would be safer pursuing global nuclear disarmament, “but until we arrive at that happy state, we have no choice and a responsibility towards our own people, to have nuclear weapons to protect them from nuclear threats.” These enunciations are in synch with India’s overall nuclear disarmament policy to make hortatory statements on eliminating nuclear weapons, but proceeding quietly to strengthen its own nuclear arsenal and further refine its own missile capabilities. Nothing new, therefore, in these expressions of India’s nuclear disarmament policy. Except for the further confession by the National Security Adviser that “On at least three occasions before 1998 other powers used the explicit or implicit threat of nuclear weapons to try and change India’s behavior.” He gave no further details. One is not privy to the Government’s intelligence on these occasions. But information available in the public domain on the nuclear weapons-related crises involving India and Pakistan before their nuclear tests in 1998 can be reviewed. • A series of alarms and feverish diplomatic activity occurred over 1984-86 when Pakistan voiced suspicions that India was planning to attack its nuclear installations in Kahuta that housed its weapons programme. India had strenuously denied having any such intentions, but the US felt impelled to persuade India to desist. An unintended effect of these manoeuvres was that the US got committed to protecting Pakistan’s nuclear programme, which they had always opposed. • Shortly thereafter, a major crisis erupted in 1986-87 between India and Pakistan centering on India’s massive Brasstacks exercise that was conducted along the India-Pakistan border. Pakistan then made provocative counter-deployments, leading to a tinder-box situation where a minor skirmish could have triggered an all-out war. Fortunately, this crisis was defused by good sense ultimately prevailing on both sides. During this episode Pakistan’s controversial nuclear scientist, AQ Khan, had delivered a warning to India through an Indian journalist, Kuldip Nayyar, that Pakistan possessed nuclear weapons and would use them against India, if provoked. This warning was treated with skepticism in India, and was denied by Pakistan. Neither did it serve any purpose since the crisis had abated. • Again a huge uprising occurred in the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s, triggered by perceived unfair elections held in 1989 that was further inflamed by extreme elements in Pakistan. That led to large-scale deployment of troops by India and counter-deployments by Pakistan. Beliefs that this crisis had a nuclear dimension are based on an ambiguous statement by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Yakub Khan, that “lightning is flashing in the skies” and a sensational story published in the New Yorker by the journalist Seymour Hersh in 1993 alleging that Pakistan had armed its aircraft with nuclear weapons that were placed on “strip alert.” None of these crises, therefore, contained any credible “explicit or implicit threat of nuclear weapons to try and change India’s behavior.” Much lies in the eyes and ears of the beholder. But, having made such large assertions in public the National Security Adviser must clarify himself. Or is he only tilting at windmills in seeking to justify India’s nuclear deterrent? And deride any effort by India to proceed unilaterally towards nuclear disarmament? These clever postures are a far cry from the Nehruvian era when India enjoyed a certain élan in the sphere of nuclear disarmament and the search for a safer world. India’s highly publicised contribution in recent years to revive this élan is the Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan (1988), which has been resurrected to refurbish the besmirched image of the NDA Government. But India is not prepared to join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and permanently eschew nuclear testing. Nor is it willing to cease manufacturing fissile materials for weapons purposes before the Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) is negotiated, of which there is no sign. The final irony surely is that India fervently wishes to gain entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (MSG), the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Wassenaar Arrangement and Australia Group. All of them are multinational export control regimes designed to ensure the non-proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction. In other words, India would not like more countries to acquire nuclear weapons, while supporting nuclear disarmament as a desirable end, and keeping its powder dry. We are like that only! —- |
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The Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), founded in 1996, is a premier South Asian think tank which conducts independent research on and provides an in-depth analysis of conventional and non-conventional issues related to national and South Asian security including nuclear issues, disarmament, non-proliferation, weapons of mass destruction, the war on terrorism, counter terrorism and armed conflict and peace processes in the region. Our research promotes greater understanding of India’s foreign policy especially India-China relations, India’s relations with SAARC countries and South East Asia. |
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Pakistan's Hall of Shame on August 26th, 2012
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in India on August 24th, 2012
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 Sahih International
And [remember, O Muhammad], when those who disbelieved plotted against you to restrain you or kill you or evict you [from Makkah]. But they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners. (Surah 8:30) *********************************************************************************************
Even though the Kamra attack failed miserably, the conspirators are back at their drawing boards, planning many more such attacks (They plan and Allah Plans, Allah’s Plans works). Their plans are ignominious failures. We can expect manu more of such failures or many more Kamras. These Makaars, will never let go. They are obssessed to the point of self-anhilation or utter destruction. Let’s just give them some food for thought: Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, now believed to consist of as many as 115 or more nuclear bombs and missile warheads, have gotten the attention of current and former Pakistani officials. In an interview with NBC News early this month, Musharraf warned that a snatch-and-grab operation would lead to all-out war between the countries, calling it “total confrontation by the whole nation against whoever comes in.”
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Pakistanis should understand, that since the time of the Prophet (PBUH), Jews, Hindus/Kafirs, Christians/Nasara wanted to destroy Islam. The Prophet (PBUH) was harassed and tortured, till, he had to migrate from Makkah to Madina. Even, after 14,00 years, there has been no let up in the hostility or the nefarious designs of Islams’ enemies. The underlying cause of this hatred is that Islam exposed contradictions which crept into the Jewish and Christian versions of the Abrahamic faiths. Islam also exposed the animistic and idolatorous nature of Hinduism. Islam introduced the concept of Tawheed and destroyed the idea of an anthropomorphic God. The idea of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, could not stand muster to Islamic challenges. Creation cannot define the Creator. The Creator defines Creation. That is why, Islam describes the Attributes of the Creator in The Holy Qu’ran, but not the Creator. Almighty Creator is beyond the realm of the Created. In depth study of Islam also reveals that all knowledge leads mankind towards understanding the transcendental and sublime nature of The Creator.
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The fear of negation of the very basis of Christianity, the Trinity, has created paranoia about Islam in Europe and America. While, Hinduism which promotes115,000 gods, makes deities out of rats, monkeys, and elephants is blown out of the water by the logic of Islamic belief in One Creator being As-Samad.
Islam believes in the equality of humanity. God does not choose favorites. Almighty judges us on our character and our deeds. Neither does God Almighty, keeps humanity in suspense about coming of the Messiah. The prophets came, gave their loving Message to humanity. The last Message was the Message of Peace, Al-Islam. The last Prophet (PBUH) delivered it 14,00 years ago.
Pakistan is not only an Islamic nation. It is a nuclear Islamic nation. This is as they say in America, “purty hard to swallow.” Therefore, the Trident of Nuclear Destroyers,” have reasons to worry about Pakistan and will look for any excuse to destroy it. But, what God creates, Man cannot destroy.
Pakistan was born on the 27th of Ramadan,Laillatul Qadr, the Night of Allah’s Power. It is only Allah, who can protect it. As the Christian Lord’s Prayer says, “Thy will be Done,” so God’s Will be Done to Protect Pakistan, Inshallah.
So, wiser nations, will eschew efforts, which are doomed to fail from the get-go. They wlill only be embarassed and when their plans and conspiracies fail. There is Allah’s Plan and there is Conspirators Plan, Allah’s Plan Works.
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Brave personnel of Pakistan Air Force and Pak Army’s Special Service Group (SSG) of Commandoes foiled the assault on Kamra Base on August 16 by killing all the terrorists who were disguised in security forces’ uniform, equipped with latest guns and rocket launchers.
Unlike the past wars between two state actors, in the present era, rival countries employ lethal and non-lethal weapons such as suicide attacks, bomb blasts, targeted killings, and other tactics of guerilla warfare including a deliberate propaganda campaign in order to achieve their desired goals. Double game is also being played in this respect. As part of the new warfare, these tactics are being employed by the US, India and Israel to ‘denuclearise’ Pakistan.
The terror attack at Kamra Base coincided with the statement of US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta who said on the same day, “There is a danger of nuclear weapons of Pakistan, falling into hands of terrorists.”
Panetta’s misperception was also shared by a baseless report, published in the New York Times on the same day, which said that suspected militants attacked a major Pakistani Air Force base where some of the country’s nuclear weapons were considered to be stored in the early hours of the militants’ attack. The report also presumed, “The base is part of Pakistan s nuclear stockpile, estimated to include at least 100 warheads.”
Notably, US top officials have accelerated their pressure on Islamabad to launch joint military operations against the Haqqani network, based in North Waziriran. In this regard, on August 15, US State Department spokeswoman stated that the US was in talks with Pakistan and Afghanistan on joint action against Haqqani group. Besides, a recent report of The Telegraph, quoting the US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta said that “Pakistan military is planning to start an operation against militants in North Waziristan.”
On the other side, after his recent meeting with Gen. James N. Mattis, Commander US CENTCOM, on August 17, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani categorically dispelled the speculative reporting in foreign media, regarding joint operations in North Waziristan. He reiterated, “We might, if necessary, undertake operations in NWA, in the timeframe of our choosing and requirements.” It will never be a result of any outside pressure.
Although, like the recent subversive activities in other cities of Pakistan, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed the responsibility for the attack at Kamra Base, yet this terror attempt cannot be seen in isolation.
In fact, the US, India and Israel are in collusion to weaken Pakistan because it is the only nuclear country in the Islamic World. Based in Afghanistan, these countries’ secret agencies CIA, RAW and Mossad have been supporting bomb blasts, suicide attacks, abductions, target killings, ethnic and sectarian violence in various cities of Pakistan through their affiliated militant groups in order to fulfill secret strategic designs against Pakistan. While backing similar subversive activities in Balochistan, these agencies have also been assisting Baloch separatist elements. Their agents are penetrated in militant groups such as Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Jundollah (God’s soldiers). Particularly, RAW has hired the services of many Indian Muslims. Posing themselves as militants, they have joined the ranks and files of the TTP and other extremist outfits.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik and top civil and military officials have repeatedly disclosed that training camps are presence in Afghanistan, and supply of arms and ammunition to the Baloch separatists and Pakistani Taliban continue by the foreign elements as part of a conspiracy against Pakistan. In this context, intermittent cross-border terrorism in Pakistan from Afghanistan’s side also keeps ongoing in wake of a deliberate propaganda against the country. However, all these anti-Pakistan developments are interrelated as US-led India and Israel intends to create unrest in Pakistan.
It is mentionable that misperceptions of American high officials and other hostile countries including their media about Pak nukes are not new ones. In this respect, when militants had attacked on Pakistan’s Naval Airbase in Karachi on May 23, 2011, US-led some western countries including India and Israel, while manipulating the situation had intensified their campaign against the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
In this regard, on May 24, last year, the head of NATO in Afghanistan, Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated that the security of “Pakistan’s nuclear weapons has become a matter of concern, the day after the worst assault on a Pakistani military base.” On May 25, Indian Defence Minister AK Antony also stated that India was concerned about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
Some reliable sources suggested that there is solid evidence that RAW had conducted terror-attack at the Karachi naval base with the tactical support of CIA and Mossad.
Particularly, US is playing a double game with Islamabad by employing shrewd diplomacy. In this context, in 2009 when the heavy-armed Taliban entered Swat, Dir and Buner, on April 23, 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had stated that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists. But when Pakistan’s armed forces ejected the Taliban insurgents out of the affected areas by breaking their backbone, then American high officials including Ms. Clinton had admired the capabilities of Pak Army.
During his recent visit to the US, DG of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam emphatically told the CIA Director David Petraeus to end predators’ strikes on Pak tribal areas, which are counterproductive.
Besides, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman repeatedly pointed out that Pakistan and America would resume broader talks on other issues, especially drone attacks in the wake of an agreement to reopen NATO supply lines to Afghanistan. While, Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta have repeatedly stated that America wants stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and their country needs Islamabad’s help for this purpose. They also remarked that the US seeks Pakistan’s assistance for withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, which will commence in 2013 and will be completed in 2014. These forces will adopt Pakistani route for the exit strategy. US top officials, especially Ms. Clinton also requested Pakistan to play its role as a facilitator for peace deal with the Afghan Taliban.
However, all this shows American duplicity with Islamabad because quite opposite to positive statements of its top officials and expectations from Islamabad, CIA-operated unmanned aircraft killed more than 22 people in North Waziristan on August 18 and 19.
US aims behind such strategy is to provoke the tribal people against the Pakistani government, causing more recruitment of militants in FATA, and more subversive attacks inside the country and assaults on the security forces. Another purpose is also to create a rift against the civil and military rulers on one side, and opposition including religious parties on the other. In the recent past, Pakistan’s political and religious parties conducted rallies and processions against the resumption of NATO transport routes, especially drone attacks.
Nevertheless, at this critical juncture, when US and Pakistan are repairing their damaged relations by resolving other issues, without bothering for public backlash against the drone attacks, America has itself been weakening this country.
Now, under the pretext of Talibanisation of Pakistan and lawlessness in the country, which has been accelerated by the CIA, RAW and Mossad, US wants to show to other western countries that militants can possess Pak nukes. It seeks to compel Islamabad to hand over its nukes to the US. Therefore, it is preparing ground to ‘denuclearise’ Pakistan by propagating in the world that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not safe.
In response to US-led continued propaganda, Pakistan’s military and civil leadership has repeatedly pointed out that Pak nukes are fully secured and are under tight security arrangements.
Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power
Email: [email protected] |
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Our Heroes on August 24th, 2012
This study of the original Arabic edition of the book Al-Taisir Fil-Mudawat Wal-Tadbeer (Book of Simplification Concerning Therapeutics and Diet) written by the Muslim physician Abu-Marwan Abdel-Malik Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar, 1093-1162 AD) aimed at evaluating his contributions to the progress of surgery and providing English translations of relevant excerpts. Ibn Zuhr s unique experiment performing a tracheotomy on a goat, proved the safety of this operation in humans and represented a further step in the development of the experimental school started by Al-Razi (Rhazes) of Baghdad in the ninth century who is known to have given monkeys doses of mercury to test it as a drug for human use. Ibn Zuhr also performed post mortems on sheep in the course of his clinical research on treatment of ulcerating diseases of the lungs. Same as all his predecessors in the Islamic Era, he stressed the importance of a practical and sound knowledge of anatomy for surgical trainees. Furthermore, Ibn Zuhr insisted on a well supervised and structured training program for the surgeon-to-be, before allowing him to operate independently. He also drew the red lines at which a physician should stop, during his general management of a surgical condition; a step forward in the evolution of general surgery as a specialty of its own. He believed in prophylaxis against urinary stone disease and reported the importance of dietary management for that purpose. Furthermore, Ibn Zuhr enriched surgical and medical knowledge by describing many diseases and treatment innovations not ever described before him.
Abdel-Halim RE, Division of Urology, Department of Surgery, King Saud University, College of Medicine and King Khalid University Hospital, PO Box 2925, Riyadh 11461, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. [email protected]
Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik Ibn Zuhr was born at Seville in 1091/c. 1094 C.E. After completing his education and specializing in medicine, he entered the service of Almoravides (Al-Murabatun), but after their defeat by the Al-Mohades (Al-Muwahadun), he served under ‘Abd al-Mu’min, the first Muwahid ruler. He died in Seville in 1161/c. 1162 C.E. As confirmed by George Sarton, he was not a Jew, but an orthodox Muslim.
Ibn Zuhr was one of the greatest physicians and clinicians of the Muslim golden era and has rather been held by some historians of science as the greatest of them. Contrary to the general practice of the Muslim scholars of that era, he confined his work to only one field medicine. This enabled him to produce works of everlasting fame.
As a physician, he made several discoveries and breakthroughs. He described correctly, for the first time, scabies, the itch mite and may thus be regarded as the first parasitologist. Likewise, he prescribed tracheotomy and direct feeding through the gullet and rectum in the cases where normal feeding was not possible. He also gave clinical descriptions of mediastinal tumours, intestinal phthisis, inflammation of the middle ear, pericarditis, etc.
His contribution was chiefly contained in the monumental works written by him; out of these, however, only three are extant. Kitab al-Taisir fi al-Mudawat wa al-Tadbir (Book of Simplification concerning Therapeutics and Diet), written at the request of Ibn Rushd (Averroes), is the most important work of Ibn Zuhr. It describes several of Ibn Zuhr’s original contributions. The book gives in detail pathological conditions, followed by therapy. His Kitab al-Iqtisad fi Islah al-Anfus wa al-Ajsad (Book of the Middle Course concerning the Reformation of Souls and the Bodies) gives a summary of diseases, therapeutics and hygiene written specially for the benefit of the layman. Its initial part is a valuable discourse on psychology. Kitab al-Aghthiya (Book on Foodstuffs) describes different types of food and drugs and their effects on health.
Ibn Zuhr in his works lays stress on observation and experiment and his contribution greatly influenced the medical science for several centuries both in the East and the West. His books were translated into Latin and Hebrew and remained popular in Europe as late as the advent of the 18th century.
References:
Saudi Med J. 2005 Sep;26(9):1333-9. Contributions of Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) to the progress of surgery: a study and translations from his book Al-Taisir. Abdel-Halim
http://www.webgaza.net/scientists-scholars/Zuhr.htm
ummah.net
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