The paper attempts to expand the authentic understanding of the imperatives of the scientific ethos given by R.K. Merton in 1942. In the original interpretation, Merton’s Code referred only to the European science of the New Age and subsequent centuries. As Merton himself and his followers have seen, the applicability of this code to other societies is not relevant. However, the author of the paper believes that the original four maxims of Merton in one way or another work effectively outside the specified space-time frame and, in particular, work in medieval Arab-Muslim science. The philosophical allegorical parable "The Message of Birds" written by Ibn Sina in the XI century is used as a text in which the imperatives that semantically coincide with Merton's maxims are found. The analysis shows that the text of the medieval scientist is transparently articulated: 1) Mertonian "communism" which assumes the collective ownership of epistemological discourse participants of the products received in its process (new empirical facts, theoretical and methodological innovations); 2) "universalism" that excludes any discrimination of discourse subjects on external, non-scientific criteria; 3) "disinterestedness", according to which the scientist builds his activities as if he had no other interests but to understand the truth; 4) "organized skepticism" according to which there is no presumption of innocence in science, and whoever comes forward with epistemological innovation must calmly and patiently prove his rightness to those who are standing in defence of the existing body of knowledge. Since the author of "The Message of Birds", despite his chosen artistic and mystical form for this work, is one of the largest figures of medieval Arab-Muslim science, his parable should be interpreted, first of all, as a text, which reflects the very process of cognitive search in pre-classical science. A closer familiarity with the nature and content of epistemological discourse in ancient and medieval traditional societies provides a good reason here to see one of the attempts to systematize the ethical rules that have actually been in force among scientists for many centuries.