Al-Sadīd al-Dimyāṭī was one of the personal physicians of the Mamluk sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn (1285–1341) in Cairo. A member of the eminent Karaite family of Ibn Ṣaghīr/Kūjik (“Small”), and known as Ibn Kūjik, he was one of the few court physicians from this family who did not convert to Islam.

We have no information regarding al-Sadīd al-Dimyāṭī’s personal name (Ar. ism). His nisba (attribution), however, indicates that the town of Damietta (Ar. Dimyāṭ) in the Delta on the east branch of the Nile River was his place of origin. His honorific title (Ar. laqab) al-Sadīd (“the so…