Biographies of Ibn al-Nafīs:1
Only two copies of the ʿUyūn al-Anbāʾ contain a biographical entry for the physician Ibn al-Nafīs. This biography is not part of Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah’s work, but rather a later addition made by scribes or readers. The Damascus manuscript has a short entry in the same hand as the rest of the volume with relevant information about this physician. The London manuscript contains two short biographies taken from al-Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah, written by Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370), and the Ḥusn al-muḥāḍarah by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505).
[AI.1]
Damascus, Maktabat al-Asad al-Waṭaniyyah, MS 148 Ṭ M (former 4883), fol. 104b.2
This undated manuscript contains two works: 1) a fairly abridged copy of the third version of the ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ (fols. 1a–104b), in which the poetry has been cut off and the bibliographical sections summarized; 2) an unidentified work on medical ethics (fols. 106b–122b).
The biographical note, which closes this copy of the ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ on fol. 104b and is listed in an index at the beginning of the volume, is written in the same hand as the rest of the manuscript. It has no precise parallel in any of the other biographies of Ibn al-Nafīs (more than eighteen in number) and contains some material not found in other biographical accounts.
ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn [ʿAlī ibn] Abī l-Ḥazm al-Qarashī, originally from al-Qarash, with two fatḥahs, a village in Syria,3 was physician and an eminent authority whose wisdom was as vast as the ocean and as high as the mountains. He did not limit himself to a single branch of knowledge. His commentary on the obscure parts of [Ibn Sīnā’s] Canon (al-Qānūn) would have served as more than enough argument against those who questioned his eminence and warned against him; but, in addition to that, he composed many other works on varied topics, well-received by critics in most lands, that addressed the truths of philosophical speculation, the nuances of thought, the subtleties of remarks, and the refinements of expression.4 Most especially this is evident in the work entitled Epitome of [Ibn Sīnā’s] Canon (Mūjaz al-Qānūn),5 and The Complete Book (al-Kitāb al-Shāmil),6 in which he discusses the differences of opinion amongst [medical] scholars. Ibn al-Nafīs was a versatile man who assimilated the ideas of wise men in various branches of knowledge, paying attention to the essence and the purity of convincing arguments and demonstrations, and using simple, meaningful words and clear expression.
ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn composed numerous books and excellent writings, among them:
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A commentary on Hippocrates’ Aphorisms (Sharḥ al-Fuṣūl li-Abuqrāṭ)7
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Fruits of Questions (Thimār al-masāʾil)8
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On plants (K. al-Nabāt), in which he discussed simple medicaments.9
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On the nativities of triplets (K. Mawālīd al-thalāthah)10
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Compendium of medical intricacies (Jāmiʿ al-daqāʾiq fī l-ṭibb)
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The Salutary Book (K. al-Shāfī)
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On the pains of infants (R. Fī awjāʿ al-aṭfāl).
[AI.2]
London, British Library MS Add. Rich. 7340, fol. 210a.
Written by a much later hand on a folio inserted at the end of a copy of the ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ that was completed in Isfahan in 1017/1608; the brief biographical entry on Ibn al-Nafīs occupies a central paragraph. It is a paraphrased version of Ibn al-Nafīs’ entry in the biographical dictionary by the Shāfiʿī scholar Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370).11
The imam ʿAlī ibn Abī l-Ḥazm al-Qarashī ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ibn al-Nafīs, physician and sage, studied medicine under Muhadhdhab al-Dīn al-Dakhwār12 and composed excellent medical works, such as the Epitome (al-Mūjaz) and the Commentary on the Canon [of Ibn Sīnā] (Sharḥ al-Qānūn),13 and the work entitled The Complete Book (al-Shāmil), which would have comprised three-hundred volumes had it been finished, but the author only completed eighty of them. As a Shāfiʿī jurist, Ibn al-Nafīs also wrote on the principles of law and logic and, in general, on various branches of knowledge. None on the face of Earth among those who came after Ibn Sīnā equalled Ibn al-Nafīs for knowledge of medicine, and it is said that he was superior to Ibn Sīnā in therapeutics. Ibn al-Nafīs died on the 11th of Dhū l-Qaʿdah of 687 [7 December 1288], leaving his books as a pious endowment to the Manṣūrī Hospital.14
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London, British Library MS Add. Rich. 7340, fol. 210a (marginalia in a different hand from the central paragraph).
It is a paraphrased version of Ibn al-Nafīs’ entry in the Ḥusn al-muḥāḍarah by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505).
Al-Suyūṭī states in his history of Egypt:
Ibn al-Nafīs, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥazm al-Qarashī, was an authority on medicine in Egypt and author of the Epitome (Mūjaz) and the Commentary on the Canon [of Ibn Sīnā] as well as other volumes. He was one of those scholars of sharp intelligence and proficient intellect who combined knowledge of medicine with other disciplines such as positive law and legal principles, hadith, and logic. He died in the month of Dhū l-Qaʿdah, in 687 [December 1288], at the age of nearly eighty, and remains unequalled by any of those who came after him.15
On Ibn al-Nafīs see EI2 art. ‘Ibn al-Nafīs’ (M. Meyerhof & J. Schacht); DSB art. ‘Ibn al-Nafīs’ (A.Z. Iskandar); EI Three art. ‘Ibn al-Nafīs, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Abī l-Ḥaram al-Qurashī’ (N. Fancy); Ullmann, Medizin, 172–176; Meyerhof & Schacht, Theologus Autodidactus, 1–36; Pormann & Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine, 46–48, 60, 71, 74, 85, 101, 180; Fancy, Science and Religion in Mamluk Egypt; Gutas, ‘Ibn al-Nafīs’s Scientific Method’, 142–144.
See Hamarneh & al-Ḥimṣī, Fihris, i:476–482. The manuscript is undated.
The Syrian village of al-Qarash has not been found in other sources. Ibn al-Nafīs’s nisbah al-Qarashī (native of al-Qarash) is a variant for al-Qurashī (related to the Quraysh tribe) found in the majority of manuscript copies of his treatises and adopted by scholars as the most common vocalization. His name is also often written (in fact, more correctly written) as ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Abī l-Ḥaram.
The author of this description seems to have borne in mind Ibn al-Nafīs’ works on logic and grammar, among them a commentary of Ibn Sīnā’s Remarks and Admonitions (al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt), a commentary of Aristotle’s Analytica Priora entitled (K. al-Wuraywāt), a commentary on Ṣāʿid ibn al-Ḥasan al-Rabaʿī al-Baghdādī’s Fuṣūṣ, and an original work on grammar entitled The Path of Eloquence (Ṭarīq al-faṣāḥah); see Meyerhof & Schacht, Theologus Autodidactus, 26–27.
Or Mūjaz fī l-ṭibb, also frequently written as Mūjiz al-Qānūn or Mūjiz fī l-ṭibb. This work was a handbook with excerpts from Ibn Sīnā’s Canon, but excluding anatomy and physiology; in subsequent centuries it became one of the most widely read Arabic medical treatises and the subject of commentaries and super-commentaries; see Meyerhof & Schacht, Theologus Autodidactus, 25; Savage-Smith, NCAM-1, 269–306. Its attribution to Ibn al-Nafīs has been questioned; see ‘Appendix: The Curious Case of the Mūjaz’ in Fancy, Science and Religion, 117–120; Fancy, ‘Medical commentaries’.
This work, whose full title is al-Kitāb al-Shāmil fī l-ṣināʿah al-ṭibbiyyah, was intended as a comprehensive encyclopaedia of medicine projected by the author to encompass three hundred volumes when completed, with each volume consisting of approximately ninety-five leaves. Only eighty volumes were completed, of which only fragments survive, some in the author’s handwriting. Various fragments are preserved in ten manuscripts. For a detailed study of the structure of the encyclopaedia in terms of preserved fragments, see Savage-Smith, NCAM-1, 337–347 entry no. 77.
See Meyerhof & Schacht, Theologus Autodidactus, 24; Savage-Smith, NCAM-1, 18–23 entry 6A. This work has been edited in 1991 with the title Sharḥ fuṣūl Abuqrāṭ. See also Abou Aly, ‘A few notes on Ḥunayn’s translation’; F. Rosenthal, ‘Life is Short, the Art is Long’.
Unidentified. This treatise is not recorded by this title in any other source. This might correspond to Ibn al-Nafīs’ commentary on Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq’s Masāʾil fī l-ṭibb which has survived in the Leiden, University Library MS Or. 49/2 and remains unedited. See also, Meyerhof & Schacht, Theologus Autodidactus, 24.
Unidentified. This title might refer to Ibn al-Nafīs’ commentary on the section on simple drugs from Ibn Sīnā’s Canon, which circulated separately with the title Sharḥ Mufradāt al-Qānūn; see Meyerhof & Schacht, Theologus Autodidactus, 26.
These last four works remained unidentified and are not listed in any other biographical accounts of Ibn al-Nafīs.
See al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah, viii:305 (n. 1206).
Muhadhdhab al-Dīn al-Dakhwār (d. 628/1230) was physician-in-chief at the al-Nūrī Hospital in Damascus; his biography is found in IAU 15.50; see also EI Three art. ‘al-Dakhwār, Muhadhdhab al-Dīn’ (N.P. Joosse). Ibn al-Nafīs – also Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah – studied medicine under him. See Ullmann, Medizin, 172.
For the Epitome see note above. The Commentary is a different work in several volumes following the arrangement of Ibn Sīnā’s Canon, with exception of the parts on anatomy, which were commented separately. On this work see Meyerhof & Schacht, Theologus Autodidactus, 25–26; and Pormann & Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine, 46–48.
Upon his death in 876/1288, Ibn al-Nafīs bequeathed his library to the newly founded Manṣūrī hospital (established in 683/1285) in Cairo. See EI Three art. ‘Ibn al-Nafīs, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Abī l-Ḥaram al-Qurashī’ (N. Fancy); on this hospital see also Ragab, Medieval Islamic Hospital.
Cf. al-Suyūṭī, Ḥusn al-muḥāḍarah, i:542.