Abu Qasim Khalaf Ibn Abbas Al Zahrawi, known in the West as Albucasis or Zahravius, was born in 936 AD in Al-Zahra’, a suburb, six miles northwest of Cordoba, the capital of Muslim Spain (Al-Andalus). His ancestors were from the Al Ansar tribes of Al Madina Al Munawwarah who came from the Arabian peninsula with the Muslim armies which conquered and lived in Spain. Al-Zahrawi traveled rarely, and spent most of his life in his hometown as a practicing physician-pharmacist-surgeon.

He served as the court physician to Caliph Al-Hakam-II, at a period considered as the “Golden Age” of Arab Spain when natural and mathematical sciences reached their peak. After a long and distinguished medical career, he died in 1013 AD at the age of 77.

Around the year 1000 AD, he wrote his famous book “Al Tasreef Liman ‘Ajaz ‘Aan Al-Taleef”, (The Clearance of Medical Science For Those Who Can Not Compile It). It was a summation of about fifty years of medical education, training, practice and experience. The thirty volumes of the medical encyclopedia covered various aspects of medical knowledge. In addition to sections on medicine and surgery, there were sections on midwifery, pharmacology, therapeutics, dietetics, psychotherapy, weighs and measures, and medical chemistry.