Search

, Ismāʿīl b. al-Ḥusain Abu ’l-Faḍāʾil, an Arab, physician, died 530 = 1135, composed in addition to smaller works two textbooks of medicine, one for ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī Arslān entitled al-Tad̲h̲kira al-As̲h̲rafīya fi ’l-Ṣināʿa al-Ṭibbīya (see de Slane, Catalogue des Mss. Arab. de la Bibl. Nat., N°. 29, 29955) and for the Ḵh̲wārizms̲h̲āh the Ḏh̲ak̲h̲īrat Ḵh̲wārizms̲h̲āh (Yeni Ḏj̲āmiʿ Kütübk̲h̲ānesinde maḥfūẓ kütüb mewd̲j̲ūdeñin defteri, N°. 915, 916); see Wüstenfeld, Arab. Arzte, N°. 165; Brockelmann, Gesch. d. arab. Lit., i. 487. (C. Brockelmann)

al-ḥalabī , Arab physician who came originally from Aleppo, and was possibly related to the family of Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa [ q.v.]. The biographical details concerning him are fairly sparse, but it is known that he wrote, probably between 654 and 674/1256-75, a work on ophthalmology called al-Kāfī fi ’l-kuḥl (or fi ’l-ṭibb ). In this he gives a concise sketch of the history of ophthalmology among the Arabs and deals with the anatomy, physiology and hygiene of the eyes, citing the medicaments used for treating eye disorders, and d…

, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad , Arab physician. According to a statement of the Syro-Arab physician ʿUbayd Allāh b. D̲j̲ibrīl b. Bak̲h̲tīs̲h̲ūʿ, given by Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, Ibn Abi ’l-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ originated from Fārs. Having been originally an administrative official, he hurriedly left the country after his income had incurred muṣādara , and reached Mosul in a wretched condition. There he treated with success a son of the Ḥamdānid Nāṣir al-Dawla, who had been taken ill. Having thus risen to distinction, he stay…

, Arab physician, hence referred to as al-ṭabīb , who is regarded as the first Ḳurʾān interpreter in modern times who discusses non-Arab occidental sciences in Ḳurʾān commentaries. In 1880 he published Kas̲h̲f al-asrār al-nūrāniyya al-Ḳurʾāniyya in Cairo, a few years before the British occupation of Egypt. According to its title and subtitle, this book solves the Ḳurʾānic secrets of “celestial bodies, the earth, animals, plants and minerals”. In 1299/1881-2 he seems to have moved to Damascus, where he published in 1883 a second book entitled Tibyān al-asrār al-rabbāniyya fi ’l-na…

, Abū Dāwūd Sulaymān b. Ḥassān al-Andalusī , Arab physician, perhaps of Spanish extraction, born in Cordova 332/944, died after 384/994. He began the study of grammar and tradition in Cordova in 343/954, but already at the age of 15 turned to medicine, in which field ten years later he was an acknowledged authority. He was the personal physician of al-Muʾayyad bi’llāh His̲h̲ām (336-99/977-1009). It was during this period that he wrote most of his works, such as the Tafsīr anwāʿ al-adwiya al-mufrada min kitāb Diyusḳūrīdūs , composed in 372/982 (of which only …

, dāʾūd b. ʿumar al-ḍarīr , Arab physician born at Antioch, son of the raʾīs of Ḳaryat Sīdī Ḥabīb al-Nad̲j̲d̲j̲ār, undertook, though blind, long journeys which led him also into Asia Minor. There he learnt Greek, on the advice of a Persian physician who had cured him of a malady from which he had long suffered, in order to be able to study the sources of medical science in the original texts. Later, he lived at Damascus and Cairo, and died in 1008/1599 at Mecca, after less than a year’s stay there. His chief work is a large, exhaustive medical hand-book in which he followed Ibn al-Bayṭār, named Tad̲h̲…

, Yūsuf ( Yünus ?) b. Isḥāḳ al-Isrāʾīlī , Judaeo-Arab physician and pharmacist who lived in Almeria ca. 1100 A.D. There he wrote the K. al-Mustaʿīnī for al-Mustaʿīn billāh Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Muʾtamin billāh (reigned 478-503/1085-1109), the Hūdid ruler of Saragossa [see hūdids ], after whom the work was named. The book must have attracted attention immediately, for it is often quoted by al-G̲h̲āfiḳī [ q.v. above], a younger contemporary of Ibn Biklāris̲h̲, in his K. al-Adwiya al-mufrada ; in the Latin version of the latter under the name Bu…

middle of the 6th cent. AD; Greek medical writer. Works A comprehensive encyclopaedia on general medicine as well as individual medical treatises. Manuscripts The most important Greek textual witness is Parisinus gr. suppl. 1297, which only survives in fragmentary form. It contained several works by Alexander, as well as special material that also appears in the old Latin translation. More of his works were preserved by another group of manuscripts around Marcianus gr. V9 and Parisinus gr. 2203. All other text types w…

, an arabicised Persian word, originally from the Sanskrit, denoting a narcotic drug, more exactly the henbane ( hyoscyamus ). The meaning of the Sanskrit bhaṇgā is really “hemp” ( cannabis sativa L.), i.e., the variety which grows in southern climes which contains in the tip of its leaves an intoxicating resinons substance (Arabic ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲ ), whence the Zend banha “drunkenness”. In Persian the loanword bang was applied to the henbane and for this reason Ḥunayn b. Isḥāḳ, in his Arabic translation of the Materia medica of Dioscorides, (c. 235/850) equated…

(Abu ’l-Farad̲j̲), Yaḥyä b. Saʿīd b. Yaḥyā, Arab physician and historian, a Melkite Christian, and close relative of Eutychius of Alexandria (Saʿīd b. Baṭrīḳ). He was born probably about 980 A.D., and spent the first 35-40 years of his life in Egypt. After the persecutions perpetrated against the Christians of Egypt by the Caliph al-Ḥākim, the latter, in an access of goodwill, in 404/1013-14 allowed the Christians to leave Egypt, and in 405/1014-15 Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd settled on Byzantine soil at Ant…

, Abū ʿAlī Yaḥyā b. ʿĪsā , Arab physician of Bag̲h̲dād, known in the West under the names of Ben Gesla, Byngezla, Buhahylyha, etc. Of Christian origin, he embraced Islam under the influence of his teacher, the Muʿtazilī Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Walīd, on 11 Ḏj̲umādā II 466/11 February 1074. He was secretary to the Ḥanafī ḳāḍī of Bag̲h̲dād and studied medicine with Ṣāʿid b. Hibat Allāh, court physician to al-Muḳtadī. He lived in the al-Kark̲h̲ quarter, where he attended his neighbours and his friends without payment and even obtained the…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan Hibat Allāh b. Abi ’l-ʿAlāʾ Ṣāʿid b. Ibrāhīm, with the titles of honour Muwaffiḳ al-Mulk and Amīn al-Dawla, widely known under the last name, a Christian Arab physician of Bag̲h̲dād, where he was born in the second half of the fifth (xith) century, the son of a prominent physician. He completed his education in several branches of knowledge on long sojourns in Persia and then settled in Bag̲h̲dād as successor to his father. He must have been highly gifted, with a remarkable knowledge of the Arabic language, as well as of Sy…

(also Ibn al-Suwaydī ), ʿIzz al-Dīn Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Ṭark̲h̲ān, Arab physician (b. 600/1204 in Damascus, d. there 690/1292). He was a student of Ibn al-Bayṭār and a friend of Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa [ q.vv.]. The latter reports that al-Suwaydī was an excellent writer of poetry and prose (see ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ , 267, for some verse) and, in addition, an outstanding calligrapher who penned his own books in the “well-proportioned script” ( al-k̲h̲aṭṭ al-mansūb ) devised by Ibn al-Bawwāb [ q.v.] or in clear Kūfī script. Three works of al-Suwaydī are extant in manuscript: 1. K. al-Tad̲h̲kir…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan Hibat Allāh b. Abi ’l-ʿAlāʾ Ṣāʿid b. Ibrāhīm , with the honorific names of Muwaffiḳ al-Mulk and Amin al-Dawla (he was widely known under the latter name), Christian Arab physician of Bag̲h̲dād, where he was born in the second half of the 5th/11th century, and son of a very eminent physician. He completed his education in various branches of learning by making fairly long journeys in Persia, and then returned to settle in Bag̲h̲dād, where he succeeded his father. He seem…

The polymath Fakhr al-Dīn Riḍwān b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Rustam al-Khurāsānī al-Sāʿātī ( al-sāʿātī = the clockmaker) (d. c.627/1230) was an Arab physician and littérateur who was well-versed in logic and other philosophical disciplines as well as in clockmaking. He was born and raised in Damascus. His father, Muḥammad, a skilled clockmaker and keen astronomer, was a native of Khurāsān in eastern Iran but moved to Syria, settling in Damascus. He was commissioned by the Zangid ruler Nūr al-Dīn (r. 541–69/1147–74…

, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Abū ’l-ʿAlāʾ ʿAlī b. Abi ’l-Ḥazm al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī (al-Ḥaram and al-Ḳars̲h̲ī are misreadings), a n Arab physician of the viith (xiiith) century. Except the date of his death, very few facts of his life have been recorded, as Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa, although his contemporary, does not mention Ibn al-Nafīs in his history of physicians. Born about 607 (1210) in Damascus, Ibn al-Nafīs studied medicine there in the hospital founded by Nūr al-Dīn b. Zankī [q. v.] in the vith (xiith) century (al-Bīmāristān al-Nūrī). His first teacher was Muhad̲h̲d̲h̲ib al-Dīn ʿAbd …

Dāʾūd b. ʿUmar al-Ḍarīr (al-Akmah) al-Anṭākī (d. 1008/1599) was an Arab physician born in Antioch. Although Dāʾūd was blind from birth, he apparently travelled a great deal, lived in Cairo and Damascus, and died in Mecca. He is reported to have learnt Greek on the advice of a Persian scholar who cured him of a long-term lameness: the traditions of the ancient Greek authors were still important in the tenth/sixteenth century. Dāʾūd wrote several medical treatises on subjects ranging from classical medicine to superstition and magic. He is famous for his large medical handbook, the Tadhkira…

The term Arabistics for Arabic studies did not appear in Europe until after 1850, but since around 1500 European scholars had been engaged in the scientific study of the language and literature of the Arabs, as well as their history and culture. While in the Middle Ages scholars studied the most important language of the Islamic world, the language of the Quran, solely for evangelistic purposes (Mission), the Reconquista, the Reformation, and Humanism altered the motives of scholars for engaging with Arabic.When direct military confrontation came to an end in Spain, a re…

b. ʿAmr b. ʿIlād̲j̲ al-T̲h̲aḳafī (d. 13/634-5), traditionally considered as the oldest known Arab physician. It is nevertheless difficult to pin down his personality. He came originally from al-Ṭāʾif, where he was probably born a few years after the middle of the 6th century A.D., and is said to have been a lute-player (trained in Persia?) before studying medicine at Gondēs̲h̲āpūr [ q.v.] and, adds Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī ( Ṭabaḳāt al-umam , ed. Cheikho, Beirut 1912, 47, tr. Blachère, Paris 1935, 99) with small probability, in the Yemen. He became …

, the patronymic of a family of Muslim scholars who flourished in Spain from the beginning of the xth to the beginning of the xiiith century a. d. They had migrated from Arabia and traced their descent from ʿAdnān [q. v.]. Their descendants gradually became scattered over the whole of the Iberian peninsula from Xativa (Ḏj̲afn S̲h̲āṭiba) in southeastern Spain where they first settled. 1. The ancestor of the Spanish line was called Zuhr. His biographer, Ibn al-Abbār, gives him the name al-Iyādī, because he traced his descent from Iyād, son of Maʿadd, son of ʿA…