Ibn Butlan

Ibn Buṭlān
ابن بطلان‎
Ibn Buṭlān (left) and two of his students depicted in the Cod. Vindob. S. N. 2644 edition of the Tacuinum Sanitatis[1]
Official nameAbū 'l-Ḥasan al-Muḫtār Yuwānnīs ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdūn ibn Saʿdūn ibn Buṭlān (أبو الحسن المختار إيوانيس بن الحسن بن عبدون بن سعدون بن بطلان)
Personal
Bornc. 1001–1025
Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate (now Iraq)
Died2 September 1066 (aged 40–66)
Antioch on the Orontes, Byzantine Empire (now Turkey)
ReligionChristianity
Occupation
  • Author
  • monk
  • physician
  • theologian
Organization
ChurchChurch of the East (initially)
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (later)
Senior posting
Influenced by
Medical career
Institutions
Onomastic information
Arabic name
Personal
(Ism)		Al-Muḫtār
المختار
Patronymic
(Nasab)		Ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdūn ibn Saʿdūn ibn Buṭlān
بن الحسن بن عبدون بن سعدون بن بطلان
Teknonymic
(Kunya)		Abū l-Ḥasan
أبو الحسن
Other namesYuwānnīs
إيوانيس

Abū 'l-Ḥasan al-Muḫtār Yuwānnīs ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdūn ibn Saʿdūn ibn Buṭlān[2] (Arabic: أبو الحسن المختار إيوانيس بن الحسن بن عبدون بن سعدون بن بطلان listenⓘ; c. 1001 to 1025 – 8 Šauwāl 458 AH or 2 September 1066[3]), commonly known as Ibn Buṭlān (ابن بطلان listenⓘ), was an Arab physician and Christian theologian. Born in Baghdad, the erstwhile capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate, he travelled throughout Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Anatolia, during which time he practiced medicine, studied, wrote, and engaged in intellectual debates—most famously the Battle of the Physicians[a] with the Egyptian polymath Ibn Riḍwān. In 1054, he was in Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, where he witnessed first-hand the East–West Schism among Christendom, contributing a work to the discussions surrounding it for Michael I Cerularius, who was serving as the Patriarch of Constantinople. After his time in Constantinople, Ibn Buṭlān remained in the Byzantine Empire and eventually became a monk for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch amidst the end of the Macedonian Renaissance.

He is most renowned for his work Taqwīm aṣ-Ṣiḥḥa (تقويم الصحّة listenⓘ, lit. 'Tabular Register of Health'), a handbook on dietetics and hygiene.[b] It was named for its intricate tables, similar to those found within a Taqwīm as-Sana (تقويم السنة, lit. 'tabular register of the year'), a type of astrological almanac.[c][8] He was the first person to use these tables in a non-astrological work, creating a new scientific writing format that may be seen as the main influence for works like Taqwīm al-Abdān fī Tadbīr al-Insān[d] by the Arab physician Ibn Ǧazla and Taqwīm al-Buldān by the Kurdish geographer and historian Abū 'l-Fidāʾ.[e][f][10][11][3][12][13][14] Translations of Taqwīm aṣ-Ṣiḥḥa into Latin are preserved in many manuscripts from the early modern period, and are thought to illustrate the relationship between medieval Europe and the Arab world in the field of medicine. Despite increased European contact with Egypt and Syria through the Crusades and trade into the 16th century, there are no Latin translations of Arabic medical texts after Ibn Buṭlān's era.[15][16]

Although he lived during a period when non-Muslims—the so-called People of the Pact,[g] who were originally Jews, Christians, and Sabians—dominated the medical profession in the Arab world,[h] Ibn Buṭlān is noteworthy for being one of only a few non-Muslim physicians from the region about whom enough is known to paint a detailed biography. Documents like the Cairo Geniza, a collection of Jewish manuscript fragments, provide scientific records about the medical practices of such physicians, but lack reliable information outside of that to create detailed biographies about them and to describe their perception and role within society, thus proving Ibn Buṭlān as an important exception.[18]

  1. ^ Tacuinum Sanitation, Cod. Ser. n. 2644 HAN MAG. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  2. ^ Graf, Georg (1944). Geschichte der Christlichen Arabischen Literatur [History of Christian Arabic Literature] (in German). Vol. II. pp. 191–195.
  3. ^ a b Schacht, J. (1997). "Ibn Buṭlān". Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. 3: 740–742. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_3120. ISBN 9789004161214 – via Brill.
  4. ^ Arano, Lusia Cogliati (1976). The medieval Health Handbook - Tacuinum sanitatis. Translated by Ratti, Oscar; Adele, Westbrook. New York: G. Braziller. pp. 6, 11. ISBN 0-8076-0808-4. OCLC 931195251.
  5. ^ a b Loudon, Irvine (2001). Western Medicine: An Illustrated History. Oxford University Press. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-0-19-924813-1.
  6. ^ Savage-Smith, Emilie. "Islamic Medical Manuscripts: Bio-Bibliographies - Ibn Butlan". www.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
  7. ^ Hau, Friedrun R. (2005). Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte [Encyclopedia of Medical History] (in German). Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil, Wolfgang Wegner. Berlin: De Gruyter. p. 223. ISBN 3-11-015714-4. OCLC 249493450.
  8. ^ Wickersheimer, Ernest (1950). "Les Tacuini Sanitatis: Et Leur Traduction Allemande Par Michel Herr" [The Tacuini Sanitatis: and their German translation by Michael Herr]. Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance. 12 (1): 85–97. ISSN 0006-1999. JSTOR 20673484 – via JSTOR.
  9. ^ Ibn Buṭlān,approximately 1068 (1990). Le Taqwīm al-Ṣiḥḥa (Tacuini Sanitatis) d'Ibn Buṭlān : un traité médical du XIe siècle : histoire du texte, édition critique, traduction, commentaire. Hosam Elkhadem. Lovanii: A. Peeters. pp. 37–42. ISBN 90-6831-271-5. OCLC 25171187.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Yousef Jadon, Samira (1968). The Arab Physician Ibn Buṭlān (d. 1066) Medical Manual for the Use of Monks and Country People (in Arabic). Los Angeles. p. 33.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ^ Ibn Buṭlān,approximately 1068 (1990). Le Taqwīm al-Ṣiḥḥa (Tacuini Sanitatis) d'Ibn Buṭlān : un traité médical du XIe siècle : histoire du texte, édition critique, traduction, commentaire. Hosam Elkhadem. Lovanii: A. Peeters. p. 38. ISBN 90-6831-271-5. OCLC 25171187.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Cyril, Elgood (1951). A medical history of Persia and the Eastern caliphate: from the earliest times until the year A.D. 1932. Cambridge University Press. p. 222.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference :15 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Tonwaide, Alain (1996). "Heilkundliche Verfahren im Mittelalter: die Arzneimittel" [Processes of Medical Science in the Middle Ages: the medicines]. Die Geschichte des medizinischen Denkens: Antike und Mittelalter [The History of Medical Thinking: Ancient and Medieval Era] (in German). Bernadino Fantini, Mirko Dražen Gremk, Corinna Fiedler. München: C.H. Beck. p. 291. ISBN 3-406-40286-0. OCLC 36886925.
  15. ^ Loudon, Irvine (2001). Western Medicine: An Illustrated History. Oxford University Press. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-0-19-924813-1.
  16. ^ Ibn Butlan's Tacuinum sanitatis in medicina. Strassburg, 1531.
  17. ^ صديق أحمد عيسى المطيعي (1976). الباب الخامس والأربعون: في الحسبة عل الأطباء، والكحالين، والجرانحيبن، والجبرين [The fourth and fifth Chapter: On the Upholding of Collective Morality of the Physicians, the Ophthalmologists, the Surgeons, and the Setters of Broken Bones]. In Šaʿbān, Muḥammad Maḥmūd (ed.). Maʿlam al-Qurba fī Ṭalaba al-Ḥisba معالم القربة في طلب الحسبة [Teachers of Kinship on Pursuing the Upholding Collective Morality] (in Arabic). Cairo. p. 254.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ^ Conrad, Lawrence (2001). "Ibn Buṭlān in Bilād al-Shām". Syrian Christians under Islam, the First Thousand Years. Leiden: Brill. pp. 131–132. ISBN 978-90-04-49746-7. OCLC 1310083914.


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