Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi (936–1013), (Arabic: أبو القاسم بن خلف بن العباس الزهراوي‎) also known in the West as Abulcasis, was an Andalusian Arab physician. He is considered the greatest medieval surgeon to have appeared from the Islamic World, and has been described by some as the father of modern surgery.[1] His comprehensive medical texts shaped both Islamic and European surgical procedures up until the Renaissance. His greatest contribution to history is the Kitab al-Tasrif, a thirty-volume encyclopedia of medical practices.[2]

Not always properly credited, Abū Al-Qāsim's al-Tasrif described both what would later became known as "Kocher's method" for treating a dislocated shoulder and "Walcher position" in obstetrics. Al-Tasrif described how to ligature blood vessels almost 600 years before Ambroise Paré, and was the first recorded book to document several dental devices and explain the hereditary nature of haemophilia.[citation needed] He was also the first to describe a surgical procedure for ligating the temporal artery for migraine, also almost 600 years before Pare recorded that he had ligated his own temporal artery for headache that conforms to current descriptions of migraine.[citation needed] Abū al-Qāsim was therefore the first to describe the migraine surgery procedure that is enjoying a revival in the 21st century, spearheaded by Elliot Shevel a South African surgeon.

Abū al-Qāsim also described the use of forceps in vaginal deliveries.[3] He introduced over 200 surgical instruments.[4] Many of these instruments were never used before by any previous surgeons. Hamidan, for example, listed at least twenty six innovative surgical instruments that Abulcasis introduced.[citation needed]

His use of catgut for internal stitching is still practised in modern surgery. The catgut appears to be the only natural substance capable of dissolving and is acceptable by the body. Abū al-Qāsim also invented the forceps for extracting a dead fetus, as illustrated in the Al-Tasrif.[5]