Take a lame and decrepit female Hyena...: A Genizah study of two additional fragments of Sābūr Ibn Sahl's al-Aqrābādhīn al-Saghīr

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 13, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 361-383

  Chipman, Leigh N ^a   Lev, Efraim ^b  

^a BEN GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV   (Israel)

^b UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA   (Israel)

Author keywords

Genizah; Islamic medicine; Manuscripts; Pharmacology; Sabur ibn sahl

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HISTORY; HISTORY OF MEDICINE; MEDICAL LITERATURE; PUBLICATION;

HISTORY, ANCIENT; MANUSCRIPTS AS TOPIC; MEDICINE, ARABIC; PHARMACOPOEIAS AS TOPIC;

EID: 61549141333     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/138374208X313476     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Oliver Kahl, "Sābūr b. Sahl," Encyclopedia of Islam, new edition, VIII: 694.
2. Sābūr ibn Sahl, Dispensatorium parvum (al- Aqrābādhīn al-aghīr), analysed, edited and annotated by Oliver Kahl (Leiden, 1994). [Hereafter Edition]
3. Sābūr ibn Sahl, The Small Dispensatory, trans. Oliver Kahl (Leiden)
4. Sābūr, Edition, 4-5.
5. For a history of the Genizah and Genizah scholarship, see Stefan C. Reif, A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: The History of Cambridge University Genizah Collection (Richmond, 2000)
6. For a catalogue of the medical material there, see Haskell D. Isaacs (with the assistance of Colin F. Baker), Medical and Para-medical Fragments in theCambridge Genizah Collections (Cambridge, 1994)
7. also Friedrich Niessen and Efraim Lev, "Addenda to Isaacs Catalogue of Medical and Para-Medical Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections
8. together with the Edition of two Medical Documents," forthcoming in Hebrew Union College Annual
9. Efraim Lev and Leigh N. Chipman (eds)., Isaacs-Baker Catalogue of Medical and Para-medical Fragments in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, revised and expanded edition, in preparation. For surveys of the material
10. see Paul Fenton, "The Importance of the Cairo Genizah for the History of Medicine," Medical History, 24 (1980), 347-348.
11. Colin F. Baker, "Islamic and Jewish Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean World: The Genizah Evidence," Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 89 (1996), 577-580.
12. See Efraim Lev and Leigh N. Chipman, "A Fragment of a Judeo-Arabic Manuscript of Sābūr Ibn Sahl al-Aqrābādhīn al-aghīr Found in the Taylor-Schechter Cairo Genizah Collection," Medieval Encounters, 13 (2007), 347-362.
13. The Dustūr al-bīmāristānī is edited in P. Sbath, "Le Formulaire des hpitaux dIbn abil Bayan, médicin du bimaristan annacery au Caire au XIIIe sicle," Bullétin de lInstitut dEgypte, 15 (1932-1933), 9-78
14. see now Efraim Lev, Friedrich Niessen and Leigh Chipman, "A Hospital Handbook for the Community: Evidence for the Extensive Use of Ibn Abī l-Bayān al-Dustūr al-bīmāristānī by the Jewish Practitioners of Medieval Cairo," Journal of Semitic Studies, 52 (2008), 103-118.
15. Isaacs, Catalogue, 20, no. 255.
16. Ibid., 30, no. 382.
17. One dirham is approximately 3.125 g. Metrical equivalents are taken throughout from Walther Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte (Leiden, 1970).
18. One istār is approximately 20 g.
19. 12One dāniq is anything from 0.52 g to 0.74 g
20. Sharāb could, in theory, be any beverage, not necessarily wine, but it is commonly found in medical works as a euphemism for the forbidden khamr. In this case, the alternative translation "syrup" seems less appropriate. On wine in the medical context, see Peter Heine, Weinstudien: Untersuchungen zu Anbau, Produktion und Konsum des Weins im arabisch-islamischen Mittelalter (Wiesbaden, 1982), 111-112;
21. David Waines, "Abū Zayd alBalkhī on the Nature of Forbidden Drink: A Medieval Islamic Controversy," in La alimentacon en las culturas islimicas, eds. Manuela Marn and David Waines (Madrid, 1994), 111-126.
22. One sukurruja is approximately 125g.
23. Based on the reading and translation in Sābūr, Edition, 217, n. 132.
24. Sābūr, Edition, 67, l. 8 to 68, l. 13 (= Translation, 56, l. 27 to 57, l. 24).
25. Sābūr, Edition, 71, ll. 11-18 (= Translation, 60, ll. 9-17).
26. Sābūr, Edition, 66, l. 17 to 68, l. 13 (= Translation, 56, l. 6 to 57, l.24).
27. Apart from studies of al-Bīrūnī, research on the transmission of Indian science to the Muslims is still very much in its infancy. See Max Meyerhof, "On the Transmission of Greek and Indian Science to the Arabs," Islamic Culture 11 (1937), 17-29;
28. we have been unable to see Amir Ali, "Sanskrit Legacy to the Arab Intellectual Heritage," in History, Culture and Society in India and West Asia, ed. N.N. Vohra (Delhi, 2003), 220-231.
29. However, it is known that by the early third/ninth century, three relevant Sanskrit texts had been translated: Suruta-Sahitā, Caraka-Sahitā and Aān ahr aya-Sahitā. See Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden, 1970), 103-107.
30. Stephanie W. Jamison, "Rhinoceros Toes, Manu V.17-18, and the Development of the Dharma System," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 118 (1998), 255.
31. A.K. Nadkarni, Indian Materia Medica (Bombay, 1976), 2: 217.
32. For a full discussion of animal materia medica in the Middle East, see Efraim Lev, "Healing with Animals (Zootherapy) from Practical Medieval Medicine to Presentday Traditional Medicine in the Levant," Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 85 (2003), 107-118.
33. Ibn al-Bayār, al-Jāmi li-mufradāt al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya (Būlāq 1291/1874, repr. Baghdad, 1980).
34. Ibid., 3: 92.
35. Aref Abu-Rabia, Traditional Bedouin Medicine (Tel Aviv, 1999), 59 [in Hebrew].
36. Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar, "Ethnopharmacological Survey of Traditional Drugs Sold in the Kingdom of Jordan," Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 82 (2002), 135.
37. Ibn al-Bayār, 4: 153-154, s.v. "marāra."
38. Ibid., 2: 127, s.v. dhiib.
39. Ibid., 3: 162-163.
40. Joseph de Somogyi, "Medicine in ad-Damīrī ayāt al-ayawān," Journal of Semitic Studies, 2 (1957), 67-68.
41. A. Gacek, "Technical Practises and Recommendations Recorded by Classical and Post-classical Arabic Scholars Concerning the Copying and Correction of Manuscripts," in Les Manuscrits du Moyen Orient, ed. F. Deroche (Istanbul and Paris, 1989), 55.
42. Ibid., 57.
43. Gerhard Endress, "Handschriftenkunde," in Grundriss der arabischen Philologie. Band I: Sprachwissenschaft, ed. Wolfdietrich Fischer (Wiesbaden, 1982), 284.
44. For example, the indications of the greater kalkalānaj appearing in T-S Ar.40.5 verso, ll. 12-15 are similar but not identical to those appearing in recipe 54 of Kahl edition.
45. M. Beit-Arié, "Publication and Reproduction of Literary Texts in Medieval Jewish Civilization: Jewish Scribality and its Impact on the Texts Transmitted," in Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality and Cultural Diffusion, eds. Y. Elman and I. Gershoni (New Haven and London, 2000), 239.
46. Beit-Arié M. Idem., "Transmission of Texts by Scribes and Copyists: Unconscious and Critical Interference," Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 75 (1993), 39.
47. The identifications and main uses of the materia medica are taken primarily from Efraim Lev, Medicinal Substances of the Medieval Levant (Tel Aviv, 2002) [in Hebrew]
48. and Efraim L. idem., "Reconstructed materia medica of the Medieval and Ottoman al-Sham," Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 80 (2002), 167-179.
49. Additional plants have been identified on the basis of Ahmed Issa Bey, Dictionnaire des noms des plantes (Cairo, 1930)
50. Max Meyerhof and Georgy P. Sobhy (eds. and trans.), The Abridged Version of "The Book of Simple Drugs" of Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghāfiqī (Cairo, 1932)
51. and Max Meyerhof (ed. and trans), Šar asmā al-aqqār (Lexplication des noms des drogues), un glossaire de matire médical composé par Māmonide (Cairo, 1940).