IBN AL-TILM?DH, AM?N AL-DAWLA ABU’L- ?ASAN HIBAT ALL?H IBN SA??D

(b. Baghdad, ca. 1073; d. Baghdad, 11 February 1165)

medicine, pharmacy, logic, education literature.

Ibn al-Tilm?dh’s maternal grandfather, Mu ?tamad al-Malk Abu’l-Faraj Yahy? ibn al-Tilm?dh, was a physician. He made great efforts to secure a good education for his grandson, who assumed the patronymic Ibn al-Tilm?dh after the grandfather’s death. Upon completion of his medical education, Ibn al-Tilm?dh went to Persia, where he practiced for several years in the Khur?s?n region. There, according to Zah?r al-D?n al-Bayhaq?(1106–1170), he learned the Persian language. Being a Syriac Christian and vitally interested in his church, its liturgy, and its activities, he also mastered the Syriac (Aramaic) language. Y?q?t al-Hamaw?(1179–1229) affirmed that Ibn al-Tilm?dh knew Greek as well.

Ibn al-Tilm?dh conducted a lively correspondence with dignitaries, high government officials, colleagues, friends, and members of his family. His letters, collected during his lifetime in a large volume entitled Tawq???t wa-mur?sal?t, include one of advice and admonition addressed to his son, who does not seem to have been very intelligent. He also wrote numerous short poems on general medicine, the value of learning, dietetics, mental health, friendship, clouds, hospitality, modesty, loneliness, romance, wine, fish, the balance, the astrolabe, armor, and shadows.

After his return to Baghdad, Ibn al-Tilm?dh served under several caliphs, especially al-Muqtaf?(1136–1160), who appointed him court physician and chief of the ?Adud? hospital, one of the most important institutions of its kind. He also was commissioned by the caliph to conduct licensing examinations for doctors, and he had the largest private medical school in Baghdad in his time. His fame as a medical educator attracted students from far and near.

Ibn al-Tilm?dh enjoyed an excellent reputation not only as an educator but also as a physician. His practice brought him wealth and prosperity, and he was very generous to his students and to the poor. He amassed a large library, most of which was dispersed after his death.

Ibn al-Tilm?dh wrote fourteen books, including pharmaceutical formularies and medical commentaries, some of which were cited by later Arab physicians for more than a century after his death. He was described as a highly respected man–gentle, eloquent, and very friendly–who died at an advanced age without loss of his mental faculties or dignified manners.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Original Works. Ibn al-Tilm?dh’s literary contributions can be classified in four categories:

1. Independent medical works such as Aqr?b?dh?n (a pharmaceutical formulary in 20 chs., compiled from several earlier compendiums); a shorter version, in 13 chs. for use in hospitals only; the (al-Am?niyya) fi’l-fasd, on phlebotomy, in 10 chs, (Lucknow, 1890); Quwa’l-ad-wiya al-mufrada (on the effects of simple drugs used in hospitals), arranged alphabetically, with descriptions, identifications, synonyms (in Syriac, Greek, and Persian), and therapeutic uses of each; and Mujarrab?t (on clinical cases that he treated and experimented upon), containing several medical recipes with descriptions of pharmacological effects. Several MSS of these works are extant in many libraries, including the British Museum; Bodleian; Forschungsbibliothek, Gotha; Egyptian National Library, Cairo; and Damascus National Library.

2. Commentaries and selections from Greek medical texts, such as Hippocratic writings and their interpretations by Galen: Aphorisms, Prognostic, and Substitution of Drugs.

3. Commentaries and abstracts of leading Arabic medical works; as Hunayn ibn Ish?q’s lsagoge (al-Mas?’il); al-R?z?’s Continens (al-H?w?) Miskawayh’s On Wines and Waters (al-Ashriba); al-Mas?h?’s Hundred Books on Medicine (al-Mi?a); Ibn S?n?’s Canon (al-Q?n?n); and Ibn Jazla’s Minh?j. Ibn al-Tilm?dh also wrote a commentary entitled Medicine of the Prophet(Tibb al-nab?), thereby becoming the first Christian physician to write on such traditional Muslim bookof medical aphorisms. Unfortunately, all these commentaries are lost, except for a few quotations and references preserved by later authors.

4. Collection of his epistles and poems, of which only fragments are still known; see Louis Cheikho, Almnachriq24 (1921), 251–258, 339–350, and Catalogue des manuscrits des auteurs chrétiens depuis l’Islam (Beirut, 1924), 6.

II. Secondary Literature. According to Zah?r al-D?n al-Bayhaq?, Ta’r?kh al-hukam?’,, M. Kurd ‘Ali, ed. (Damascus, 1946), 144–146, the first to mention Ibn al-Tilm?dh was his contemporary, the historian al-‘Im?d al-Isfah?n?, in his Khar?dat al-Qasr More detailed biographies are given in Y?q?t al-Hamaw?, Dictionary ofLearned Men, D. S. Margoliouth, ed., VII (London, 1931), 243–247: Abu’l-FarajIbn al-‘Ibri (Bar Hebraeus), Ta? r?kh Mukhtasar (Beirut, 1958), 209–210; Ibn Khallik?n, Wafay?t al-a?y?n, II (Cairo, 1892), 191–194; Ibn al-Qift?.Ta?r?kh al-hukam??. J. Lippert. ed. (Leipzig, 1903). 340–342; Ibn Ab? Usaybi?a. ?Uy?n al-anb?’. I (Cairo. 1882). 259–295: and Ab? Muhamm?d ?Abd All?h al-Y?fi Mir? ?t al-jan?n, III (Hyderabad, 1920), 344, based on the above sources.

More modern reference works, listed chronologically, are F. Wüstenfeld. Geschichte der arabischen Aerzte und Naturforscher (Göttingen, 1840), 97–98: Lucien Leclerc, Histoire de la Médecine arabe, II (Paris, 1876), 24–27; George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, II (Baltimore, 1931), 234; Carl Brockclmann. Geschichte der arabischen Literutar, 2nd ed., I (Leiden, 1943), 642, and supp., I (Leiden, 1937), 891; S. Hamarneh, “The Climax of Medieval Arabic Professional Pharmacy,” in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 42 (1968), 454–461; Origins of Pharmacy and Therapy in the Near East (Tokyo, 1973), 56–64, 87; and Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts on Medicine and Pharmacy at the British Library (Cairo, 1975), nos. or. 8293–8294.

Sami Hamarneh