Theologus Autodidactus

CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

lX

INTRO D UC TIO N

I

I.

The political background The scientific background I I 1. T he biographies of Ibn al-Nafis IV. The literary output of Ibn al-Nafis v. Ibn al-Nafis's theological novel al-Risala al-Kamiliyya

2

I 1.

6 ro

VI.

The manuscripts

TRANSLA TI ON

Excursus A Excursus B Excursus C Excursus D Excursus E Excursus F Excursus G Excursus H

22 28

36 38 75 77 78

79 So

8I 82 82

ARAB IC PART

List of Abbreviations Biographies 1 . Biography of Ibn al-Nafis by $afadi 2 . Extract from the biography of Ibn al-Nafis by 'Umari 3· Extract from the biography of Baybars by Ibn Taghribirdi 4· Extract from the biography of Kalawun by Ibn Taghribirdi 'l'cxt of al-Risala al-Kamiliyya fil-Sira al-N abawiyya by Ibn al-Nafis

:. 3

) 1

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Annates de l'Institut d'Etudes Orientales (Algiers) Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies F. Buhl, Das Leben 1Vluhammads, transl. H. H. Schaeder, Leipzig 1930 EI The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 4 vols. and Supplement, Leiden and London 1913-38; The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, L eiden and L ondon 1960 ff. C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabisclze:n Litteraturz, GAL 2 vols., Leiden 1943-9; Supplementbiinde, 3 vols., Leiden 1937-42 A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (transl. of the Guillaume Sira of I bn Is}_tii~), O.U.P. 1955 I;Iajji Khalifa, Lexicon bibliographicum et encyclopaedicmn, I;IKh ed. and transl. G. Fluegel, 7 vols., Leipzig 1835-58 IAU Ibn Abi U~aybi'a, 'Uyun al-Anbii' fi Taba~iit alAtibbii', ed. E. Muller, text i. ii, Cairo 1299/ 1882, introduction and indexes, Konigsberg 1884 Ibn Sa"d Kitiib al-Taba~iit al-Kabir, ed. E. Sachau and others, Leiden 1905 ff. Ibn Taghribirdi Nujum, al-Nujum al-Ziihira, vii, Cairo 1357/ 1938 Journal of the American Oriental Society JAOS A. Jeffery, A R eader on Islam, Hague 1962 Jeffery Kitiib al-Bad' By Mutahhar ibn Tahir al-Mal_tdisi, ed. and transi.CI. wal- Tiirikh Huart, 6 vols., Paris 1899 ff. Luciani J.-D . Luciani, El-Irchad par Imam el-Harame"in, edite et traduit, Paris 1938 Manhal al-$iifi G. Wiet, Les Biographies du Manhal al-$afi (of Ibn (Wiet) Taghribirdi), Cairo 1932 Rivista degli Studi Orientali RSO Shadhariit Ibn a!- 'Imad, Shadhariit al-Dhahab, 8 vols., Cairo 135 1 Stieglecker H. Stieglecker, Die Glaubenslehren des Islam, Paderborn AJEO BSOAS Buhl

Ziid al-Ma"iid ZDMG

1962 Ibn J~ayyim al-Jawziyya, Ziid al-Ma'iidfi Hady Khayr al- '!bad, 4 vols., Cairo 1347/ 1928 Zeitschrijt der Deutschen Morgenliindischen Gesellschaft

INTRODUCTION 'ALA' AL-DiN 'AU IBN ABI L-l:IARAM, called for short Ibn alNafis, born and educated in Syria, but later chief physician in Cairo, is an outstanding figure in the Arab medical world of the ']thj13th century. He is well known in the history of Arab medicine as a compiler of and commentator on the works of Hippocrates, Galen, and Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and has recently won fame on the discovery of his description of the lesser circulation of blood in the human body, three centuries before Servetus and Colombo, who probably knew the theory of their predecessor through the intermediary of AndreaAlpago, physician and Orientalist. M. Meyerhof published the texts in question, with a German translation, commentary, and biography of the author, in 1933. 1 An old biography of Ibn al-Nafis edited and translated there mentions a small book of his with the title Kitab Fatjil ibn Naf,i~, which it states to be a counterpart to Ibn Sina's philosophical tale of f:layy ibn Y a~~an. Professor H. Ritter of Istanbul kindly informed us that the treatise in question, which was thought to have perished, is preserved in a manuscript in Istanbul and is identical with the same author's al-Risiila al-Kamiliyya fil-Sira al-Nabawiyya, a copy of which was known to exist in the Egyptian Library at Cairo. We are very much indebted to Professor Ritter for a photograph of the Istanbul manuscript. Having in the meantime published two studies on philosophical, and especially Greek, learning among medical men in Egypt in the Middle Ages, the first on the famous controversy between the Muslim Ibn Ri.urushi, is n printing m istake for ibn Abil-l:faram, i.e. Ibn al-Nafis, as appears from the context of the catalogue. 3 E. de Zambaur, Manuel de genealogie et de chronologie, 235. The title Amir al-Mu'minin which the catalogue gives to this person is certainly a mistake and perhaps a misreading of the manuscript.

~

25

INTRODUCTION

THE LITERARY OUTPUT OF IBN AL-NAFIS

More numerous and important are Ibn al-Nafis's commentaries on medical works of the Greek and Islamic periods.

n. Mujiz al-~iinun, 'Epitome of the ~iinun' (of Ibn Sina), an extract from all parts of the I):am1n but omitting anatomy and physiology.I It is a concise manual of the whole of medicine, particularly useful for the practitioner, and among the works of Ibn al-Nafis it has met with the greatest success in the Oriental medical world. It exists in numerous manuscripts and was printed or lithographed in India alone six times or more between 1828 and 1906; it was the subject of a series of commentaries and super-commentaries, the most reputed of which is that by Nafis ibn 'Iwa