I visited the Central Research Institute of Unani Medicine (CRIUM) in Hyderabad for the first time in the summer of 2012. As I sat with the director of the institution at that time, Dr. M. Ataullah Shareef, and a few of his senior staff members in his large and comfortable office, he asked me first of all what I knew about the basics of Unani medicine. I said that I have read about them, but perhaps he could tell me a bit more. He nodded and began explaining that the humours and the elements constitute the basics of Unani medicine when, suddenly, he began telling me that the institute has a long experience with clinical research on diseases such as vitiligo, psoriasis, and sinusitis and that the treatments for these diseases have proven very effective so far. Intrigued by Dr. Shareef's preference to discuss the success of Unani treatments above its fundamental principles, I asked about the aim of this research, why is it actually conducted? His phone rang just at that moment. He excused himself and instructed Dr. Wahid, the then deputy-director who a year later would take over the direction of the institution, to answer my question. Obediently, Dr. Wahid turned to me as Dr. Shareef took the phone call, and calmly explained that research is conducted in order to translate the efficacy of Unani into the language of science, which will enable Unani to attain recognition from the WHO and the world. ‘Now, with globalization, it is necessary’ he added.

In the medical anthropological literature of Asian medicines, modern scientific research is commonly understood as pharmacological and clinical research based on a biomedical understanding of the body and its functioning. Scholars have used the term ‘epistemic violence’ coined by Gayatri Spivak (1988: 280) based on Foucault to describe the imposition of biomedical epistemologies on traditional medicine (Pordié 2014b: 50). However, from the perspective of researchers and scholars working on the validation of Unani medicine, modern scientific research is not considered to impose biomedical concepts. Quite the opposite: scientific research is considered a means by which the superiority—or at least the equality—of Unani medicine against biomedicine can be proven. To recall Dr. Wahid's words: ‘We should see that today the ruling language is the language of science, and to attain recognition from the scientific fraternity research is needed.’