This article is the second part of Aamirah’s series on Unani Tibb. It goes deeper into the six lifestyle factors that part one, Unani Medicine: Finding a Balance between the Mind, Body and Soul, ended with. To fully grasp what is discussed in this article, Tayyib Society advises you to read part one here. The six essential lifestyle factors, also known as al-ʾasbaab as-sittah (literally the six causes), are one of the crucial components of Unani Tibb. They are responsible for creating a state of health—or a state of disease—in the human being. Each of the six lifestyle factors needs to be implemented in balance and moderation based on the…

This article is the first part of Aamirah’s series on Unani Medicine, in which a general introduction to this tradition and the concept of the four temperaments is given. Part two of this series, which digs deeper into the six lifestyle factors, can be read here. Heralded as one of the great sciences of the Islamic world, Unani Tibb (literally Greek medicine) was practiced and developed from the days of the height of Greek civilization, and successfully reached generations across a wide array of empires in Islamic civilization. A thriving system, leading with a whole-body approach, its ultimate goal was to strike a balance between mind, body, and spirit. Some…

I admit. I do not particularly find the greatest peace of mind in the company of others. I am forever grateful for those heartwarming moments shared with family and friends, but my solitude-loving self suffers from a pre-emptive, itchy phantom pain by the mere thought of the loss of so-much-needed long stretches of time by myself. It goes hand in hand with a deceitful feeling of complete independence and self-reliance, which makes, truth be told, little to no sense. Because even though the loner in me yearns for flying solo, the more I look around, the more I see that individualism as a way of being and, even more so,…