At the top of the first extant page of an Arabic medical manuscript copied in eleventh/seventeenth-century Mughal India, a list of titles has been scrawled.1 Found on a folio preceding the text, this notation does not respond directly to anything in its vicinity. The manuscript it has been recorded in is a copy of the Central Asian scholar NafÄ«s b. Ê¿IwaḠal-KirmÄnÄ«âs (fl. 841/1437) ninth/fifteenth-century Arabic medical commentary Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt (The Commentary on the Causes and the Symptoms), the foundation text of which â KitÄb al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, henceforth called the AsbÄb â is a medical encyclopedia written by another Central Asian scholar, NajÄ«b al-DÄ«n al-SamarqandÄ« (d. 619/1222). What catches the readerâs eye in this annotation is its focus on specific medical titles, including those of the AsbÄb tradition it has been physically written into.
Overlined and spaced out in list format, the notation is a set of medical texts. AsbÄb-related titles are included, with the âSharh-e AsbÄbâ of al-KirmÄnÄ« and the âmatn-e AsbÄbâ, or text of the original KitÄb al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt by al-SamarqandÄ«, respectively opening and closing the list. Within the physical frame laid out by these two works, the writer has recorded titles of other major Arabic and Persian medical texts. These include three texts related to Ibn SÄ«nÄâs (d. 428/1037) Arabic al-QÄnÅ«n fÄ« al-á¹ibb (The Canon of Medicine):
(1) The QÄnÅ«ncha, an abridged treatise of the QÄnÅ«n written in Arabic by the early seventh/thirteenth-century scholar al-JaghmÄ«nÄ«.2
(2) The Sharḥ-e QÄnÅ«ncha, a Persian commentary on the QÄnÅ«ncha, possibly written by AbÅ« al-Fatḥ GÄ«lÄnÄ« (d. 997/1589), a physician under the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 963â1014/1556â1605).3
(3) The Aqá¹£arÄʾī, an Arabic commentary on Ibn al-NafÄ«sâ (d. 687/1288) al-MÅ«jaz fÄ« al-á¹ibb (Epitome of Medicine), itself an epitomisation of the QÄnÅ«n. The Aqá¹£arÄʾī is named after its author JamÄl al-DÄ«n Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Aqá¹£arÄʾī (d. 779/1378).4
Also listed in this pre-text notation are the KifÄya-yi manṣūrÄ«, a general Persian text on medicine ascribed to the eighth/fourteenth-century scholar Manṣūr b. IlyÄs, and the Baḥr al-jawÄhir (Sea of Jewels), an Arabic medical dictionary and encyclopedia written in 924/1518 by Muḥammad b. YÅ«suf al-HarawÄ«.5 Additionally, another listed text in this note is a QarÄbÄdhÄ«n, or medical formulary, that may refer to al-SamarqandÄ«âs own Arabic AqrÄbÄdhÄ«n, which he wrote to accompany the AsbÄb, elaborating upon the remedies he suggests in the latter work.6 The prevalence of medieval and early Mughal texts in this list, which offers a wide window into the world of relevant sources for á¹ibb, or medicine, found in such Arabic and Persian texts, demonstrates the importance placed on foundational sources and the later works they inspired.7 Through an exploration of paratextual notations similar to this list, a fuller understanding of Mughal and colonial á¹ibbâs textual foundations comes to light.8 To start this exploration, however, a bit of background on á¹ibb or YÅ«nÄnÄ« á¹ibb (Greek Medicine), as it is called in South Asia today, is helpful.
1 Indian YÅ«nÄnÄ« Ṭibb
With its origins in the Greek humoral theory of Hippocrates (fl. mid-fifth century BCE) and Galen (d. ca. 216 CE), á¹ibb gets its YÅ«nÄnÄ« moniker from these sources.9 The translation of these medical texts into Arabic under the early Abbasids (r. 132â656/750â1258), with the four humours â blood (dam), phlegm (balgham), yellow bile (á¹£afrÄʾ), and black bile (sawdÄʾ) â firmly ensconced in this textual tradition, prompted a subsequent flowering of medical text production in Arabic and Persian from the third/ninth century on.10 With Ibn SÄ«nÄâs five-volume medical encyclopedia, al-QÄnÅ«n fÄ« al-á¹ibb, as a major pillar of this form of medicine, á¹ibb arrived in South Asia in the seventh/thirteenth century.11 As the Delhi sultans (r. 603â932/1206â1526) ruled northern India, and then the Mughal emperors took over in the tenth/sixteenth century (r. 932â1274/1526â1857), scholars, Sufis, and other educated elites migrated to their courts, where rulers offered patronage to these émigrés to write their own texts on á¹ibb and regional medical practices.12 It was in this Mughal environment of support and proliferation of á¹ibbÄ« texts that the AsbÄb commentary tradition flourished, leading to notations such as the aforementioned list of medical titles.
2 The AsbÄb Commentary Tradition
The eleventh/seventeenth-century Indian manuscript of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Arabic Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt mentioned above is a single representative of a major á¹ibbÄ« textual tradition in South Asia, with extant volumes in the region dating from the tenth/sixteenth century onward.13 Al-SamarqandÄ« had intended the original Arabic work, his AsbÄb, to be a reference text that could be consulted during the examination and treatment of patients, and his Arabic AqrÄbÄdhÄ«n, also called al-AqrÄbÄdhÄ«n Ê¿alÄ tartÄ«b al-Ê¿ilal min kitÄb al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt (The Medical Formulary according to the Arrangement of Illnesses from the Book of the Causes and the Symptoms), he likewise wrote to be a reference book of remedies, which themselves came from treatment regimens suggested in the AsbÄb.14 Save for its first commentary â al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, written in Central Asia, and referred to henceforth as the Sharḥ al-AsbÄb â the seven commentaries that followed were written in India:15
(1) Muḥammad Akbar ArzÄnÄ« (d. 1134/1721) completed his Persian Ṭibb-i Akbar (Akbarâs Medicine), a translation of and commentary on al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Arabic Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, in Delhi in 1112/1700.16
(2) In Delhi, Sayyid Muḥammad Ê¿Äbid SirhindÄ« (d. 1151/1739) wrote the Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, which comments directly upon al-SamarqandÄ«âs AsbÄb without using al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb as intermediary.17
(3) Also in Delhi, Muḥammad SharÄ«f KhÄn (d. 1222/1807), a student of SirhindÄ«, wrote his Arabic al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya (SharÄ«fian Useful Accounts) as an annotation of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb.18
(4) Asad Ê¿AlÄ« b. ḤakÄ«m DarwÄ«sh Muḥammad b. ḤakÄ«m Najm AllÄh Ê¿Älim KhÄn (fl. ca. 1800) responded to SharÄ«f KhÄnâs al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya with his own Arabic ḤÄshiyat (super-commentary on the) Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, which he wrote in ShÄhjahÄnÄbÄd (now Old Delhi) in an attempt to make the formerâs text more understandable to the medical community.19
(5) In Hyderabad, Muḥammad BuqrÄá¹ KhÄn (d. 1144/1731) produced an Arabic gloss on al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb referred to both as Tanqīḥ (revision of) al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt and TaÊ¿lÄ«qÄt (glosses on) Sharḥ al-AsbÄb.20
(6) An inhabitant of Delhi, Muḥammad HÄshim b. ḤakÄ«m Muḥammad Aḥsan b. Muḥammad Afá¸al (fl. ca. 1770) wrote his Arabic Kashf al-ishkÄlÄt (Uncovering Ambiguities), also called ḤÄshiya Ê¿alÄ (super-commentary on the) Sharḥ al-AsbÄb after its commentary approach to al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb.21
(7) An anonymous gloss written on al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb is similarly titled ḤÄshiya Ê¿alÄ Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, with one extant manuscript of this text copied in 1199/1785.22
Put in a more visual way, Fig. 5.1 maps out the textual connections between the various works under discussion.
Chart indicating the textual connections within the Indian AsbÄb tradition, based on 124 South Asian manuscript copies of the texts
With such constant commentary production on the AsbÄb continuing in India for up to a full century after ArzÄnÄ« wrote the first Indian commentary on the text, the study and usage of these works reflect the continued relevance of al-SamarqandÄ«âs AsbÄb and, likely more relevant, al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb in the region. The text list found at the beginning of the eleventh/seventeenth-century copy of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb is the result of a single readerâs response to this work, and demonstrates an organised approach to á¹ibbÄ« textual knowledge and education, which itself underwent major changes from the tenth/sixteenth to the thirteenth/nineteenth centuries.
3 Ṭibbī Education
The study of á¹ibb was facilitated by three different approaches to á¹ibbÄ« textual education during the Mughal and colonial periods â instruction at madrasas (sg. madrasa, pl. madÄris), in private study with a physician or hakim (sg. ḥakÄ«m, pl. ḥukamÄʾ), and in medical schools that were established during colonial rule in the thirteenth/nineteenth century. Madrasas taught texts of both religion and science. These were the naqliyya and the Ê¿aqliyya or, respectively, the transmitted and rational sciences, which together were intended to create well-rounded, knowledgeable students who could go on to be valuable contributing members of society, sometimes offering medical as well as legal and religious advice;23 á¹ibb was often one of the Ê¿aqlÄ« subjects.24 From the Mughal emperor Akbarâs (r. 963â1014/1556â1605) orders on education reform to the Dars-i NiáºÄmÄ« syllabus proposed by MullÄ NizÄm al-DÄ«n al-SihÄlwÄ« (d. 1161/1748) not two centuries later, á¹ibb was to be taught alongside geometry, astronomy, ethics, fiqh, mathematics, and grammar, and texts like al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb and Ibn SÄ«nÄâs al-QÄnÅ«n fÄ« al-á¹ibb were listed as major sources of medical knowledge.25
Appreciation for á¹ibb among the other sciences, both naqliyya and Ê¿aqliyya, followed through to the colonial period, for which thirteenth/nineteenth-century records from madrasas in Bareilly, Bengal, and Bihar show á¹ibb being studied alongside logic, theology, and fiqh, as well as astronomy and natural philosophy.26 The DÄr al-Ê¿UlÅ«m Deoband, founded in 1866 by RashÄ«d Aḥmed Gangohi and Shaykh NanautawÄ«, offered instruction of á¹ibb, focusing on familiar texts like al-JaghmÄ«nÄ«âs QÄnÅ«ncha and the KifÄya-yi manṣūrÄ« alongside calligraphy to better the employment prospects of its students.27 Thus, practical skills were meant to be taught together, and skilled scribes had the option of becoming hakims, or practitioners of á¹ibb.
Private study, outside of the madrasa, allowed for more practical skills acquisition. With wealth and the right connections, a student could become an apprentice to a hakim or a scholar-hakim, both of whom were often members of the elite classes, the ulema (sg. Ê¿Älim, pl. Ê¿ulamÄʾ), or to a Sufi shaykh whose dargahs (sg. dargÄh a shrine built over the grave of a Sufi saint) were centres of treatment for a variety of ailments.28 Learning from these teachers both the dars, or textual lessons in theory, and the maá¹abb, guidance in practice (the equivalent of the clinical), students who engaged in private study very occasionally received certificates of mastery called ijÄzÄt (sg. ijÄza).29 Though much more commonly found in fiqh or hadith (sg. ḥadÄ«th, pl. aḥÄdÄ«th) manuscripts, by the colonial period medical ijÄzÄt appear to have taken on a licensing flavour. Guy Attewell cites one Arabic ijÄza from the late thirteenth/nineteenth century that lists the texts the student mastered, which familiarly include Ibn SÄ«nÄâs al-QÄnÅ«n fÄ« al-á¹ibb, al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, the Aqá¹£arÄʾī (Ḥall al-mÅ«jaz), and the QÄnÅ«ncha, the last three of which the flyleaf list in the eleventh/seventeenth-century Sharḥ al-AsbÄb manuscript also notes. In addition to the studentâs accomplishments in textual study, the ijÄza licence also records the skills the student obtained â diagnosis of diseases as well as examination of urine and pulse.30 Such attention to the overall details of the studentâs education seem to be a direct response to European medical practices, and were likely a way to demonstrate the studentsâ skills and knowledge in an age when British medicine was influencing the colonial landscape of South Asia.31 This kind of response can also be seen in the establishment of medical colleges and degree-granting programmes for á¹ibb from the 1870s up through the mid-twentieth century in Lahore, Bhopal, Delhi, Lucknow, and Hyderabad.32
It should be noted that what is mandated as part of curriculum by ruler, scholar, or practitioner is not always what is actually read and taught in practice.33 Thus, an on-the-ground exploration of what was actually read can be helpful for understanding the reception and interpretation of á¹ibbÄ« sources. And, whichever form of medical education students of á¹ibb did undertake, evidence of reader response to the medical texts they studied is found in the margins of numerous Arabic and Persian medical manuscripts in India, including those of the AsbÄb tradition.34 While the text list in the eleventh/seventeenth-century manuscript of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb notes major medical titles of import, suggesting a known reception of these sources, a related kind of paratextual notation offers clues not only to what students of á¹ibb studied, but also to how those sources spoke to the text they were reading. These citational marginalia are notations written by readers in the margins that cite medical scholars and their works in order to elaborate with authority upon a point made in the text or to disagree with the same.35 Acting as marginal commentaries of a kind, citational marginalia are key in understanding how readers of these texts read, studied, and responded to á¹ibbÄ« sources, as well as what those sources were to begin with. The AsbÄb manuscript tradition, with its many commentaries grounded in Mughal á¹ibb, offers an illuminating entrée into understanding á¹ibbÄ« textual study in Mughal and colonial India due to the continued regional production of AsbÄb manuscripts and commentaries on the text, the active study of this textual tradition, and the numerous citational marginalia written in its manuscripts, proclaiming the AsbÄb traditionâs common Indian reception and its place in the á¹ibbÄ« curriculum. We can therefore use the citational marginalia found in this manuscript tradition to shed light on the methods of reader response to the medical knowledge they encountered, the sources and scholars in the á¹ibbÄ« curriculum, and the languages of á¹ibbÄ« study and learning during the Mughal and colonial periods.
4 Reader Response
As indicators of reading practices, the citational marginalia found in the Indian manuscripts of the AsbÄb tradition first and foremost demonstrate reader response, itself informed by á¹ibbÄ« education. Due to the readerâs knowledge of various medical scholars and their texts, citational marginalia are often written in the form of commentary using phrases and full sentences pulled directly from other medical sources and cited in the margins.36 Both the citation and the further explanation in the margins shed light on how readers responded to and mastered the information found in the text and in the works of other scholars.
Explanation is one of the two ways in which readers responded to the text at hand through citational marginalia, while the other is recommendation. Explanatory marginalia focus on á¹ibbÄ« diagnosis, anatomy, theory, and treatments offered by the text, with the subcategory of diagnosis as informed by ailment symptoms making up a majority of these notations. Defined as recommendations, the other major category of marginalia suggests new substances or alternative remedies in response to the textâs treatment sections.37 Both kinds of citational marginalia suggest reader interest and also indicate contemporary discussions undertaken during á¹ibbÄ« textual study. They can therefore shed light on á¹ibbÄ« reading practices, points of interest, and questions elicited in the á¹ibbÄ« study process.
For example, ailments of the head as described in the AsbÄb-related texts come first in the head-to-toe organisation of these works, and as the head and the brain are some of the most complex parts of the human body, their ailments as described in the text are often surrounded by the most marginal notations. In the margins of a thirteenth/nineteenth-century copy of SharÄ«f KhÄnâs Arabic al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya, one notation cites both Ibn SÄ«nÄâs QÄnÅ«n and a Sharḥ on the QÄnÅ«n, referred to without attribution, in reference to an explanation of phrenitis, called qarÄnÄ«á¹is in this text.38 This ailment is a special kind of inflammation of the brain related to meningitis. The Arabic note in the margin describes it as a hot, yellow bile meningitis and enumerates the symptoms, noting fever with headache and inflammation of the throat.39 Similarly, Galen is cited in a marginal explanation of epilepsy (á¹£arÊ¿) in a manuscript of the Persian Ṭibb-i Akbar copied in 1261/1845. The Persian marginal notation explains that the cold brain causes tremors which are the effects of epilepsy, using Galen to elaborate on this ailment, a source not mentioned in the text section with which the reader is engaging.40 Both these notations further explain the ailment, working as aides-memoires and elaborations for those reading the AsbÄb materials.
Although most notations explain the ailment at hand in the text, some compare ailments and symptoms so that diagnosis is as precise as possible. One notation on ailments affecting the torso compares hiccoughing and vomiting to ensure that readers understand the difference. This Arabic note appears in the margins of a copy of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb dating from 1027/1618. Here, Ibn al-NafÄ«s (d. 687/1288), cited as al-QurashÄ«, and his Sharḥ al-QÄnÅ«n are mentioned in the explanation of the differences between the two processes. In the case of vomiting, the stomach muscles move to push out the offending material with the aid of air. Air also plays a role in hiccoughing, but, in this case, there is no removal of material.41 Thus, a difference between the two processes is the addition of matter being forced out with air when the mechanism of vomiting is activated. The movements are similar, but the results are quite different, and knowledge of this difference allows readers to understand the ways respiratory and digestive systems interact, pinpointing how the body objects to certain excesses and materials.
While readers of these texts most often wrote explanatory citational marginalia pertaining to ailments and their symptoms, they occasionally cite medical scholars in the margins to focus on matters outside of diagnosis. One citational note explaining ocular anatomy uses al-HarawÄ«âs Arabic medical encyclopedia Baḥr al-jawÄhir, noted in the flyleaf text list found in the eleventh/seventeenth-century Sharḥ al-AsbÄb manuscript, to help locate the different parts of the eye. The Arabic notation explains that the eye itself is made up of the white of the eye, the black of the eye, which is the pupil, and the compound of the pupil and the white, which is the conjunctiva, or multaḥima, a mucous membrane that covers the front of the eye and lines the inside of the eyelids. This notation appears in multiple copies of the AsbÄb tradition manuscripts â two early copies of Ṭibb-i Akbar dating from 1111/1699 and 1187/1773 and a later copy of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb completed in 1235/1820.42 Its detailed description of the eye helps the reader to better understand how these parts interact, which is enormously helpful for students of á¹ibb, considering the complexities of eye anatomy.43 Added into the margins of three different manuscripts, these explanatory citational marginalia demonstrate the readersâ need to understand ocular anatomy so that they can better identify eye ailments. It may also have been added due to the way the text was studied, with the reader and possibly other students noting it down in the margins of their study copies when they heard their teacher read aloud the marginal notation from another manuscript in an oral study circle.44 Whatever the reason, its existence in multiple manuscripts solidifies the status of the margins as a space in which readers connected the text they were reading with works they, their teacher, or previous readers had studied.
The other major group of citational marginalia, those that recommend, respond mainly to the sections of the text having to do with treatment, focusing purely on medical practice in the realm of therapeutics and pharmacology. They tend to showcase their knowledge of textual precedent as it relates to medical practicalities. These notations offer additions, substitutions, and suggestions from other medical scholars in relation to the remedies described in the text. When disagreeing with the treatments offered there, these marginalia may also warn against the usage of certain medicaments. And instead of explaining or elaborating upon the remedies offered in the text, they recommend other treatment options, ensuring that they, and those readers that may follow them, will use what they know to be the most effective remedies.
Therapeutics are one of the treatment approaches offered in the citational marginalia that recommend. Used to treat ailments, they are procedures that include humorally based therapies such as faá¹£d, bloodletting, in which the physician would draw blood from the patient through the process of venesection to treat them.45 Another therapeutic procedure is that of ḥijÄma, or cupping. In this process, a partial vacuum is created in a glass bulb or cup, using heating and subsequent cooling techniques, and this cup is then placed on the skin, with the vacuum creating suction and pulling toxins to the skinâs surface.46 Reference to this process appears in an Arabic marginal notation of a twelfth/eighteenth-century copy of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb. Citing ThÄbit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), this citational note recommends cupping to treat pleurisy (dhÄt al-janb), an inflammation of the lining of the lungs and chest cavity, instead of bloodletting.47 Here, the reader explicitly suggests, but also implicitly warns, with his recommended alternative that bloodletting may not be the most effective or safe therapeutic procedure for this ailment.
In addition to therapeutics, these treatment-related citational marginalia also offer advice pertaining to certain ailments and the use of specific substances or full remedies. Though much less common, warnings against the use of certain medicaments do appear in the margins, and one brief Arabic notation cites Galenâs advice of caution in relation to treatment for ear pains. Found in a copy of al-SamarqandÄ«âs AsbÄb likely dating from the tenth/sixteenth or eleventh/seventeenth century, the citational note warns against the use of rose and rose-related substances when treating ear aches.48 Here, the reader has reviewed the textâs advice on remedies for this ailment, and based on Galenâs own words, has written an admonition against using the remedy found in the text. Where al-SamarqandÄ« recommends rose, the citational marginal note forbids the use of this substance, strongly recommending caution in treatment. This notation, therefore, demonstrates not just reader knowledge of other textual foundations of á¹ibb, but also possible interest in ensuring the safety and effectiveness of recommended treatments, at least from a textual standpoint. Ultimately, it is reader responses such as these, recorded in the margins of the AsbÄb tradition in India, that demonstrate both what warranted marginal notation to begin with, here a disagreement with the text, as well as how readers engaged with their texts by connecting the knowledge found in front of them with the information they had learned from other major textual sources of á¹ibb, in this case advice from Galen. Those sources are what make up the textual foundations of the study of á¹ibb.
5 Sources
A categorisation of all the citational marginalia under consideration from the manuscripts of the Indian AsbÄb tradition can show which sources and scholars were more commonly cited and, therefore, studied as part of a possible á¹ibbÄ« curriculum. In the citational marginalia noted in this particular manuscript tradition there were 480 references to scholars and their works (see Table 5.1).49 Before the relevant information was written into the manuscriptâs margins, the reader noted first the scholarâs name and then, occasionally, a shortened title of the work they were citing. These references can be divided into seven groups: Greek scholars; scholars of the early Islamic period; the Arabic translators of the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries; scholars of the medieval period, which includes scholars writing in Arabic and Persian from the fourth/tenth to the ninth/fifteenth centuries; early modern scholars; Mughal Indian scholars; and miscellaneous references.
By far, those scholars cited the most often in the margins wrote their works during the medieval period. At over half of the citations in the margins, these medieval writers lived between the fourth/tenth and the ninth/fifteenth centuries; a slight preference for scholars and texts from the earlier centuries of this group is apparent. Unsurprisingly, Ibn SÄ«nÄ (d. 428/1037) and his Arabic works â al-QÄnÅ«n fÄ« al-á¹ibb, foundational to á¹ibb, as well as his treatises on colic (RisÄla fÄ« al-qÅ«lanj) and cardiac remedies (al-Adwiya al-qalbiyya) â constitute a quarter (70) of the medieval references, making up the majority of these particular citations. Other citations in the medieval group include a number of scholars active before and during the lifetime of Ibn SÄ«nÄ. The Persian polymath and physician AbÅ« Bakr Muḥammad b. ZakarÄ«yÄ al-RÄzÄ« (d. 313/925) and his Arabic KitÄb al-ḤÄwÄ« fÄ« al-á¹ibb (The Comprehensive Book on Medicine), referred to as al-ḤÄwÄ« al-kabÄ«r in the marginalia, constitute 9 percent of the medieval marginalia. Marginal references to AbÅ« Sahl ʿĪsÄ b. YaḥyÄ al-Masīḥīâs (d. 390/1000) Arabic al-Miʾa fÄ« al-á¹£inÄÊ¿a al-á¹abÄ«Ê¿iyya (The Hundred [essays] on the Physical Art) and the Persian physician Ê¿AlÄ« b. al-Ê¿AbbÄs al-MajÅ«sÄ« (d. 384/994) and his Arabic KitÄb al-KÄmil fÄ« al-á¹£inÄÊ¿a al-á¹ibbiyya (Complete Book of the Medical Art), itself cited as a major source in al-SamarqandÄ«âs introduction to his AsbÄb,50 are nearly always cited together in the margins, and, like the al-RÄzÄ« citations, also make up 9 percent of the medieval citational marginalia. Later scholars of the medieval period have similar modest citation frequencies, and while the Arab physician Ibn al-NafÄ«s (d. 687/1288), constitutes 6 percent of these citations, al-KirmÄnÄ«âs (d. 853/1449) own Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, cited in the very flyleaf list of the eleventh/seventeenth-century Sharḥ al-AsbÄb manuscript, also makes an appearance in 9 percent of the medieval marginalia, demonstrating an obvious affinity for the text within its own manuscript tradition. In terms of major representation, the relatively common citations of these scholars and their works demonstrate that it was the medieval sources that had the largest textual impact on á¹ibbÄ« study in Mughal and colonial India.
Scholarly names and references cited in the marginalia of the 124 manuscripts of the AsbÄb tradition examined here
With á¹ibb being explicitly called YÅ«nÄnÄ« in South Asia today, however, it is no surprise that references to Greek scholars such as Galen and Hippocrates, through their Arabic translations, constitute nearly one-fifth (85 in total) of the citational marginalia, coming in second only to the medieval-era foundations of this medicine. Sixty percent of those Greek references are specific to Galen, or JÄlÄ«nÅ«s. His medical corpus, later translated into Arabic through the intermediary of Syriac in the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries, formed a major basis of á¹ibb for the following millennium. Galenâs analysis of the works of Hippocrates as found in the third/ninth-century Arabic translations led to his texts becoming á¹ibbÄ« foundations, and, with the Arabic translations of both his and Hippocratesâ medical corpora, they constitute the majority of marginal citations of Greek scholars in the manuscripts of the Indian AsbÄb tradition.51 References to Hippocrates, or (I)buqrÄá¹, come in second to Galenic citations, constituting approximately 20 percent of the Greek scholars category. These relatively common references to both Galen and Hippocrates in the margins of Mughal and colonial AsbÄb-related manuscripts demonstrate the importance and longevity of their foundational status and their relevance to á¹ibb and the textual study of this medicine long after their translation into Arabic.
Citational marginalia that refer to persons of the early Islamic period made a more modest impact on Indian á¹ibbÄ« study. The early Islamic category is defined mainly by references to those who lived during and just after the lifetime of the prophet Muḥammad. Constituting 8 percent (40 citations) of the total citational marginalia, references to people of the early Islamic period largely come from hadith written in Arabic citing medical advice from the Prophet. One of the notations, for example, recommends Muḥammadâs advice for the treatment of pleurisy. The report is from Zayd b. Arqam, a companion of the Prophet, who says that he named zayt (oil) and wars (Memecylon tinctorium Blanco, a yellow dye-yielding plant from Yemen) as two substances that would help treat the symptoms of this inflammatory lung ailment, both ingredients that were known to be effective medicaments for pleurisy in pre-Islamic Arabia.52 These hadith citations, thirty-seven in total, make up 93 percent of the early Islamic marginalia, and are all found in a single manuscript â a twelfth/eighteenth-century copy of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb.53 The dominance of medical hadith in the margins of this manuscript sheds light on that notation writerâs interest in Prophetic medicine (al-á¹ibb al-nabawÄ«), an interest that was reflected in an AsbÄb commentatorâs own work â Muḥammad Akbar ArzÄnÄ«âs Persian translation of JalÄl al-DÄ«n al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä«âs (d. 911/1505) Arabic Ṭibb al-nabÄ« (Medicine of the Prophet), which ArzÄnÄ« translated and wrote for the emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1068â1118/1658â1707).54 This Mughal interest in Prophetic medicine continued amongst some of those who studied the AsbÄb tradition. And although these notations, which shed light on the application of al-á¹ibb al-nabawÄ« to á¹ibbÄ« study, appear only in this one twelfth/eighteenth-century manuscript, their very existence demonstrates how medical knowledge could encompass multiple traditions. Here, á¹ibbÄ« and Prophetic medicine citations illuminate the ways in which marginalia writers might synthesise the information they were reading, mixing their knowledge of Islamic medical practices and traditions with those of á¹ibb.
Belonging to a smaller group, the notations referring to scholars of the translation period constitute around 4 percent (20) of the marginal citations. This period is defined by the third/ninth- and fourth/tenth-century Arabic translations of scientific sources from Greek, Persian, Sanskrit, and other languages.55 As a major translator of this period and a physician who wrote his own Arabic medical works, Ḥunayn b. IsḥÄq (d. 259/873) is often cited in the margins in conjunction with his text KitÄb al-MaÊ¿ida (Book of the Stomach). His importance as a physician dominates the marginalia, with references to him and this text making up 70 percent of translator citations. Ḥunaynâs relatively common existence in the margins, within this group at least, represents the interest of the notation writers in his medical output and their knowledge of his importance to the textual foundations of á¹ibb.
Similarly small in number, marginal references to early modern scholars also make up about 4 percent (19) of the citational marginalia. Eighty-four percent of those citations refer to al-HarawÄ«âs (d. 949/1542) Baḥr al-jawÄhir, another text cited in that flyleaf list. The full title of this Arabic medical dictionary and encyclopedia is KitÄb Baḥr al-jawÄhir fÄ« taḥqÄ«q al-muá¹£á¹alaḥÄt al-á¹ibbiyya (The Sea of Jewels in the Verification of Medical Terms). Following in the ninth/fifteenth- and tenth/sixteenth-century Persian scholarly tradition of taḥqÄ«q, or verification, the text critically assessed received scholarly propositions of medicine in order to define medical terminology.56 And, as al-HarawÄ« had come to India with the invasions of the soon-to-be Mughal emperor BÄbur (r. 932â937/1526â1530), he cites in his Baḥr al-jawÄhir the Persian names for medicaments, keeping in mind his Persianate environment, as well as the Arabic ones.57 With sections on medical, pharmaceutical, and ailment-specific terms, this text was a glossary of definitions for students and scholars of á¹ibb alike. Readers of the AsbÄb tradition were aware of more than just medical encyclopedias and treatises, as noted by more than four-fifths of the early modern citational marginalia citing this medical dictionary. They referred to medical dictionaries to define and elaborate upon ideas and terms found within the texts themselves.
The last specific category of marginal citations is the smallest of the seven, but the most revealing of these reference groups. The Mughal Indian scholars cited are so categorised because they worked and lived in well-established Mughal India at some point in their lives. They constitute a small 3 percent (14) of the total marginal citations under consideration, but their existence in the margins represents knowledge of contemporary á¹ibbÄ« scholars. Selections from this category can be split into two groups â those scholars who emigrated to Mughal India and those who were born there â both working and writing with their Indian environments in mind, but coming from different backgrounds. The citations from and impact of these scholars, therefore, speak more broadly to the influence of contemporary, local scholars on á¹ibbÄ« textual study.
Two of the scholars cited in this group were Persian physicians who emigrated to Mughal India. ḤakÄ«m Ê¿AlÄ« GÄ«lÄnÄ« (d. 1017/1609) was, as his nisba indicates, from GÄ«lÄn. After his arrival in India, he became the personal physician of Emperor Akbar (r. 963â1014/1556â1605), continuing his work under Akbarâs successor, JahÄngÄ«r (r. 1014â1037/1605â1627).58 His most famous work, the Arabic Sharḥ al-QÄnÅ«n, follows in the footsteps of á¹ibbÄ« scholars before him who commented upon Ibn SÄ«nÄâs QÄnÅ«n.59 ḤakÄ«m Ê¿AlÄ« GÄ«lÄnÄ« appears three times in the manuscript margins of the AsbÄb tradition, twice in a thirteenth/nineteenth-century copy of SharÄ«f KhÄnâs al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya and once in a tenth/sixteenth-century manuscript of al-SamarqandÄ«âs AqrÄbÄdhÄ«n.60 Though dating of marginalia is not possible, it is clear that ḤakÄ«m Ê¿AlÄ« GÄ«lÄnÄ« made his mark on á¹ibbÄ« textual knowledge that was relevant to the study of the Indian AsbÄb tradition.
This is in contrast to the other cited Persian physician of Delhi. This scholar, Muḥammad Ê¿AlawÄ« KhÄn (d. 1160/1747), was born in Shiraz in 1080/1670.61 In 1111/1699 he entered the service of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1068â1119/1658â1707), who appointed him as the personal physician of his son and short-lived successor AÊ¿áºam ShÄh (r. DhÅ« al-Ḥijja 1118âRabÄ«Ê¿ al-Awwal 1119, i.e., MarchâJune 1707). Ê¿AlawÄ« KhÄn then became personal physician to BahÄdur ShÄh (r. 1119â1124/1707â1712).62 Although he is mentioned only once in the margins, Muḥammad Ê¿AlawÄ« KhÄnâs appearance in a copy of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb dating from 1136/1734 indicates his influence on Indian á¹ibb and the Indian AsbÄb tradition.63 If this notation was added in the twelfth/eighteenth century, it would be nearly contemporary with Ê¿AlawÄ« KhÄnâs own lifetime, and this would demonstrate a more immediate respect for and value of his medical knowledge. Even if this marginal citation was added later, it would show his influence, which survived after his death. With his Ê¿AlawÄ«khÄn school of á¹ibb garnering many followers, and its rivalry with the AsbÄb commentator SharÄ«f KhÄnâs own school of medical thought and practice, Ê¿AlawÄ« KhÄnâs fame and knowledge also likely played into his citation in the manuscriptâs margins.64 Either way, this reference is a testament to his influence, with the readerâs marginal notation demonstrating his relevance.
Two other Mughal Indian scholars of á¹ibb who are cited in the margins were born in India and have the added bonus of being directly related to the AsbÄb tradition in the region. Like ḤakÄ«m Ê¿AlÄ« GÄ«lÄnÄ«, Muḥammad Ê¿Äbid SirhindÄ« (d. 1152/1739) is cited three times in the citational marginalia. SirhindÄ« is the author of the only other commentary based solely on the AsbÄb, besides al-KirmÄnÄ«âs own Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, and he too wrote his text in Arabic. In addition to this textual connection, SirhindÄ« is part of the educational lineage of the AsbÄb tradition, having taught SharÄ«f KhÄn (d. 1222/1807), the physician who later wrote al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya.65 Among the Indian citations, his appearance in the margins of an undated copy of his studentâs own text demonstrates SirhindÄ«âs lasting impact on the AsbÄb tradition in the region and the notation writerâs likely desire to compare the words of the two related scholars.66 Thus, readers may have taken into account his á¹ibbÄ« lineage when acknowledging the value of SirhindÄ«âs works in the margins of the AsbÄb tradition, doing so because his medical output likely informed their study and understanding of á¹ibb.
The last citation of a Mughal Indian scholar is a reference to Muḥammad Akbar ArzÄnÄ«âs (d. 1134/1722) QarÄbÄdÄ«n-i QÄdirÄ«, which he wrote in 1126/1715.67 Though he appears in the margins only once, his existence there, in a thirteenth/nineteenth-century copy of his own work Ṭibb-i Akbar, demonstrates the relevance of ArzÄnÄ«âs texts in the study of á¹ibb.68 And with Ṭibb-i Akbar being a translation and commentary of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, ArzÄnÄ«, like SirhindÄ«, also has deep connections to the AsbÄb tradition in India. In fact, as ArzÄnÄ«âs Ṭibb-i Akbar gave rise to the major wave of AsbÄb commentaries in the region during the twelfth/eighteenth and thirteenth/nineteenth centuries, it is unsurprising that a reference to his work would show up in the margins of his own text. That this marginal citation actually refers to another of ArzÄnÄ«âs works, the QarÄbÄdÄ«n-i QÄdirÄ«, shows his influence on Indian á¹ibb, the students who studied it, and the Indian readers of the AsbÄb tradition more broadly. Thus, while Mughal Indian scholars are not commonly cited in the margins, the few references to them demonstrate the continued reception of their works as the AsbÄb tradition was being studied in South Asia.
6 Language
While the scholars and works cited in the margins demonstrate which texts were read in Indian á¹ibbÄ« study, it is the languages of these citational marginalia that show how students were studying to begin with. As a form of medicine founded on Arabic translations of Greek texts and, more influentially, the subsequent Arabic and Persian works written based on those foundations, á¹ibb was primarily studied through Arabic and Persian sources in Mughal and colonial India. And a focus on the languages used in Indian á¹ibb make clear that Persian was not necessarily favoured over Arabic, as the primacy of the Persianate Mughal sphere would have one believe.69
The texts of the AsbÄb tradition show a marked preference for Arabic as the language of science. In addition to al-SamarqandÄ«âs AsbÄb, his AqrÄbÄdhÄ«n, and al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, six of the seven Indian commentaries written on the AsbÄb between 1700 and 1815 were written in Arabic. ArzÄnÄ«âs Persian Ṭibb-i Akbar is the one exception, and that in itself was meant as both a translation of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Arabic Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, to make it accessible to Persian literati, and as a commentary on it.70 Digging deeper, only one of these seven Indian commentaries, SirhindÄ«âs Arabic Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, was written without the intervention of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs own Sharḥ al-AsbÄb. Thus, nearly all of these commentaries use an Arabic text as their baseline when remarking on the AsbÄb, also largely in Arabic.
The languages of the margins reflect this. Marginal notations in the Indian AsbÄb tradition manuscripts are written in Arabic and Persian (see Table 5.2). One exception to this is the Devanagari script used for fifteen Hindustani notations found in the margins of an undated copy of Ṭibb-i Akbar, but these marginalia are mostly transliterations of the Persian text.71 On the whole, Arabic and Persian are the languages of choice for the margins, and this is somewhat unsurprising for a textual tradition that was itself written in Arabic and Persian. Those reading these works are likely to respond to them in the same languages.
Language of the marginalia of the 124 manuscripts of the AsbÄb tradition examined here, in relation to the language of the text
Yet, when it comes to these two languages, there is a tendency to assume that Persian was the more common language of á¹ibb during both the Mughal and colonial periods. Seema Alavi contends that as the Mughal Empire began to decline in the late twelfth/eighteenth century, Persian became more accessible to elites outside of the Mughal centres, and was represented most by its literary expressions, while Arabic became a doctrinal language of religion. She argues that Arabic schools were fewer and had limited numbers of students compared to their Persian counterparts, which proliferated. And while Persian became more associated with etiquette and high culture, Alavi points to Arabic as the predominant and insular vehicle of science and medicine in nineteenth-century India.72
The languages of the margins do attest to these assertions, but the idea that Arabic did not seriously begin to take hold as a language of medicine until the late twelfth/eighteenth century is up for debate. Firstly, the fact that the Indian commentaries, some of which were produced before 1163/1750 (SirhindÄ«, d. 1151/1739; BuqrÄá¹ KhÄn, d. 1144/1731), were largely written in Arabic shows a textual preference for this language in á¹ibb even before the colonial period. And moving from the text to the margins, the marginalia in the Indian AsbÄb tradition show an overall trend toward the use of Arabic to interact with the materials as opposed to Persian. For one, of the 355 citational notations represented by Arabic or Persian, 271 â or 76 percent â are Arabic marginalia written in Arabic manuscripts of the AsbÄb tradition. The largely Arabic nature of the Indian commentary tradition on the AsbÄb meant that readers of the manuscripts had to know Arabic to understand what they were reading, and they therefore responded to these in like language. But it is also possible that these marginalia are written in Arabic because the languages of the scholars and á¹ibbÄ« sources that readers were studying and citing alongside the AsbÄb tradition were also written in Arabic. On the whole, three-quarters of the citational marginalia demonstrate a strong affinity for Arabic as a language of response to á¹ibb in the margins of Arabic AsbÄb-related manuscripts.
In similar fashion, Persian responses to á¹ibbÄ« manuscripts also make a dent in the marginalia language numbers, albeit a smaller one. The assertion that Persian became a language only of literature and culture after the decline of the Mughal Empire, whereas before it was also a language of science, can be refuted with examples of Persian interaction with AsbÄb materials. On a textual basis alone, Persian plays a key role in âpost-declineâ á¹ibbÄ« manuscript production. Of the thirty-six Indian manuscripts of Ṭibb-i Akbar that were consulted for this research, twenty-one copies of this Persian text were produced in the thirteenth/nineteenth century in manuscript form. Total copies of Ṭibb-i Akbar came in second only to total copies of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, of which forty manuscripts were consulted. And the responses to that Persian text are notable. Forty-five of the Persian citational marginalia are written in copies of Ṭibb-i Akbar alone, which can, again, partly be explained by the fact that this commentary is the only text of the seven Indian AsbÄb tradition commentaries written in Persian. This pattern is derailed, however, by the fact that Ṭibb-i Akbar, that same single Persian text in this tradition, accounts for 29 percent of the manuscripts consulted (124 Indian AsbÄb tradition manuscripts), yet only about 13 percent of the citational marginalia are Persian notations written in the margins of Persian manuscripts. Forty of those same forty-five Persian notations were written in the margins of the twenty-one copies of Ṭibb-i Akbar dating from the thirteenth/nineteenth century, well after the Mughal Empire began to decline. This is approximately 89 percent of the Persian marginalia written in the Persian manuscripts under consideration. And the use of Persian in the margins of a thirteenth/nineteenth-century Arabic text, in this case a manuscript of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Arabic Sharḥ al-AsbÄb copied in 1235/1820,73 shows both continued Persian literacy in the thirteenth/nineteenth century and a bilingual approach to á¹ibbÄ« study. Thus, Persian was clearly used as a language of science well after the Mughal Empire began to wane.
The remaining marginal notes represented by Arabic and Persian are also examples of the bilingual abilities of á¹ibbÄ« readers and the mixed linguistic reactions to the sources of the Indian AsbÄb tradition. Twenty-eight Arabic notations were written in Mughal and colonial-era copies of Ṭibb-i Akbar. This total makes these notations 8 percent of all the Arabic and Persian notes under consideration here. The bilingual reactions are also represented by the eleven Persian notations found in seven Arabic sources of the AsbÄb tradition, including one copy each of al-SamarqandÄ«âs AsbÄb and his AqrÄbÄdhÄ«n and five copies of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb.74 Though a small group, making up 3 percent of the Arabic and Persian notes, these Persian reactions, as well as the Arabic notations found in the margins of Persian manuscripts, demonstrate the resilience of both languages in á¹ibbÄ« textual study. Thus, from this exploration of the languages of the texts and the margins, what is most apparent is that Arabic had a large role to play in the á¹ibbÄ« curriculum, but both languages shared a continued vibrancy as mediums of science and medicine throughout the Mughal and colonial periods.
7 Conclusion
The citational marginalia of the Indian AsbÄb tradition illuminate various specifics of á¹ibbÄ« textual study and knowledge in Mughal and colonial India. They present the ways in which readers responded to what they were reading, the importance and usage of other texts in á¹ibbÄ« study, and the languages in which students of á¹ibb studied this form of medicine to begin with. By noting these aspects of the marginalia, a more detailed picture emerges of what it meant to study and read á¹ibbÄ« sources. Readers found ways to better understand the texts in front of them by noting in the margins what other á¹ibbÄ« scholars had to say about the topic, whether by way of explanation or new recommendation. Medieval resources were the most commonly cited works when studying the manuscripts of the AsbÄb tradition, though other scholars also influenced á¹ibbÄ« study. And Arabic made a consistent impact in á¹ibbÄ« textual learning during both the Mughal and colonial periods. Thus, with the exception of á¹ibbÄ« textual lists, both official and those found on the flyleaves of eleventh/seventeenth-century copies of al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, evidence of textual á¹ibbÄ« education is best demonstrated by the spaces offered in manuscript margins and the notations that readers saw fit to write there.
List of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books
Afá¸al, Muḥammad HÄshim b. ḤakÄ«m Muḥammad Aḥsan b. Muḥammad: Kashf al-ishkÄlÄt
MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 139.
Anonymous: ḤÄshiya Ê¿alÄ Sharḥ al-AsbÄb
MS Hyderabad, Salar Jung, Arabic Ṭibb 21.
ArzÄnÄ«, Muḥammad Akbar: Ṭibb-i Akbar
MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1846.
MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1981.
MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 50.
Vol. 1: MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1891.
Part 1: MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 47.
Vol. 2: MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 19.
Asad Ê¿AlÄ«: ḤÄshiyat Sharḥ al-AsbÄb
MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 111.
BuqrÄá¹ KhÄn: TaÊ¿lÄ«qÄt Sharḥ al-AsbÄb
MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1908.
BuqrÄá¹ KhÄn: Tanqīḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt
MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4004.
Ibn SÄ«nÄ: KitÄb al-QÄnÅ«n fÄ« al-á¹ibb
Rome: Typographia Medicea (Medici Oriental Press), 1593. https://lib-webarchive.aub.edu.lb/BorreLudvigsen/https:/almashriq.hiof.no/ddc/projects/saab/avicenna/640/html/F_003.html (archive captured 3 June 2020; accessed 25 April 2024).
al-KirmÄnÄ«, NafÄ«s b. Ê¿Iwaá¸: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt
MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 147.
MS Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 97.
MS Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 178.
MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 2066.
MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 2067.
MS Patna, Khuda Bakhsh Library, MS No. 2111 A.
MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 3997.
MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 3999.
MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4000.
Moses ben Joshua of Narbonne: Oraḥ Ḥayyim
MS New York, The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, MS 2732/UOVO RBR MS 2732a.
al-SamarqandÄ«, NajÄ«b al-DÄ«n: al-AqrÄbÄdhÄ«n Ê¿alÄ tartÄ«b al-Ê¿ilal
MS Kolkata, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Coll. No. 440/465, Accn. No. II 68.
MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4130.
al-SamarqandÄ«, NajÄ«b al-DÄ«n: al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt
MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1808.
MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1941.
MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Ind. Inst. Arab 18.
SharÄ«f KhÄn: al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya
MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4005.
MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4006.
SharÄ«f KhÄn: ḤÄshiya Ê¿alÄ Sharḥ al-AsbÄb (al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya)
MS Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 267.
SharÄ«f KhÄn: ḤÄshiyat Sharḥ al-AsbÄb (al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya)
Part 1: MS Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 796.
SirhindÄ«, Muḥammad Ê¿Äbid: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt
MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 114.
b. SuwaydÄ«, Ê¿Izz al-DÄ«n IbrÄhÄ«m (d. 690/1291): Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt
MS Manisa, Manisa İl Halk Kütüphanesi, MS No. 1831.
al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä«, JalÄl al-DÄ«n Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn: al-Ṭibb al-nabawÄ«
Cairo: n.p., 1870. Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/9XbqL6 (accessed 20 March 2021).
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Pormann, Peter and Emilie Savage-Smith: Medieval Islamic Medicine (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007).
Quaiser, Neshat: âPolitics, Culture, and Colonialism: Unaniâs Debate with Doctoryâ, Health, Medicine, and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India, eds. Biswamoy Pati and Mark Harrison (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2001), pp. 317â355.
Ragep, Sally: JaghmÄ«nÄ«âs Mulakhkhaá¹£: An Islamic Introduction to Ptolemaic Astronomy (Cham: Springer, 2016).
Rahman, ḤakÄ«m Sayyid Zillur: DillÄ« aur á¹ibb-e yÅ«nÄnÄ« (New Delhi: Urdu Academy, 1995).
Rezavi, S. Ali Nadeem: âThe Organization of Education in Mughal Indiaâ, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 68, part 1 (2007), pp. 389â397.
Rezavi, S. Ali Nadeem: âPhysicians as Professionals in Medieval Indiaâ, Disease and Medicine in India: A Historical Overview, ed. Deepak Kumar (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2001), pp. 40â65.
Robinson, Francis: âOttomans-Safavids-Mughals: Shared Knowledge and Connective Systemsâ, Journal of Islamic Studies 8, no. 2 (1997), 151â184.
Savage-Smith, Emilie: âBetween Reader and Text: Some Medieval Arabic Marginaliaâ, Scientia in Margine, eds. Danielle Jacquart and Charles Burnett (Geneva: Droz, 2005), pp. 75â101.
Åen, A. Tunç: âThe Sultanâs Syllabus Revisited: Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Madrasa Libraries and the Question of Canonizationâ, Studia Islamica 116 (2021), pp. 198â235.
A Shelflist of Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine (Bethesda, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1996).
Speziale, Fabrizio: âThe Circulation of Ayurvedic Knowledge in Indo-Persian Medical Literatureâ, Ayurveda in Post-Classical and Pre-Colonial India (July 2009). https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00584749.
Speziale, Fabrizio: âThe Relation between Galenic Medicine and Sufism in India during the Delhi and Deccan Sultanatesâ, East and West 53 (2003), pp. 149â178.
Speziale, Fabrizio: âThe Tradition and Modernization of Islamic Psychiatric Care in the Subcontinentâ, International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter 30 (2003), p. 11.
Sufi, G.M.D.: al-MinhÄj, Being the Evolution of Curriculum in the Muslim Educational Institutions of Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent (Lahore: Shaikh Muḥammad Ashraf, 1981).
Ullmann, Manfred: Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1970).
Ullmann, Manfred: Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997).
The manuscript was copied in 1022/1613; al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 3997, fol. 1r.
Ragep: JaghmÄ«nÄ«âs Mulakhkhaá¹£, pp. vii, 10.
Azmi: History of Unani Medicine, p. 69; al-ḤassanÄ«, Nuzhat al-khawÄá¹ir, p. 300.
The Aqá¹£arÄʾī is also called the Ḥall al-mÅ«jaz (The Key to the MÅ«jaz); Shelflist of Islamic Medical Manuscripts, p. 15.
Rezavi: âPhysicians as Professionalsâ, p. 53; Azmi: History of Unani Medicine, p. 47; Ullmann: Die Medizin im Islam, p. 237.
Al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 3997, fol. 1r.
Attewell: Refiguring Unani Tibb, p. 2.
As A. Tunç Åen notes, this does not necessarily make this list an official curriculum list for YÅ«nÄnÄ« Ṭibb. It does, however, offer up possibilities of what medical texts were seen as valuable enough to note down and possibly study, read, or own. Åen: âThe Sultanâs Syllabus Revisitedâ, p. 202.
According to Speziale, the YÅ«nÄnÄ« name was a colonial-era response to the incursion of Western medicine. Ṭibb had to struggle for recognition of its scientific status. Speziale: âRelation between Galenic Medicine and Sufismâ, p. 149.
Pormann and Savage-Smith: Medieval Islamic Medicine, pp. 25, 43.
Pollio, De Natale, Appetiti, et al.: âContinuity and Changeâ, p. 470; Ullmann: Islamic Medicine, p. 43; Bos: âIbn al-JazzÄr on Medicineâ, p. 366; Pormann and Savage-Smith: Medieval Islamic Medicine, pp. 24â25; Speziale: âRelation between Galenic Medicine and Sufismâ, p. 150.
Speziale: âRelation between Galenic Medicine and Sufismâ, p. 150; Speziale: âCirculation of Ayurvedic Knowledgeâ, p. 4; Attewell: Refiguring Unani Tibb, p. 19.
For this research, 124 Indian manuscripts of the AsbÄb tradition were consulted.
As the author notes in his introduction: âI have collected for my own use in this volume whatever I might need during the examination of the sick and their treatment. It will always be at hand so that I may consult it and manage without looking at other (reference) booksâ; al-SamarqandÄ«: al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1808, fol. 1v. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own.
Al-KirmÄnÄ« and ArzÄnÄ«âs commentaries officially received the AsbÄb in the eastern Islamic world, but Juliane Müller does point to two instances of AsbÄb reception farther west, albeit without the immense commentary tradition the former two works inspired. A Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt by Ê¿Izz al-DÄ«n IbrÄhÄ«m b. SuwaydÄ« (d. 690/1291) was written in the seventh/thirteenth century, not long after al-SamarqandÄ«âs own lifetime, and a copy of this text can be found in Manisa Ä°l Halk Kütüphanesi, in Manisa, Turkey (MS No. 1831). The Catalan physician Moses ben Joshua of Narbonne (d. 1362) quoted sections on fever from al-SamarqandÄ«âs AsbÄb, which he translated into Hebrew, in his Oraḥ Ḥayyim, and a copy of this manuscript is held at the National Library of Israel, in Jerusalem. Müller: Nahrungsmittel in der arabischen Medizin, p. 316; Ä°hsanoÄlu: Fihris makhá¹Å«á¹Ät al-á¹ibb al-islÄmiyya, p. 370; Moses ben Joshua of Narbonne: Oraḥ Ḥayyim, New York, The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, MS 2732/UOVO RBR MS 2732a.
ArzÄnÄ« explains in his introduction that he is translating al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb from Arabic into Persian. ArzÄnÄ«: Ṭibb-i Akbar, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1981, fol. 1v.
Muḥammad Ê¿Äbid SirhindÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 114, fol. 2r; Rahman: DillÄ« aur á¹ibb-e yÅ«nÄnÄ«, p. 65.
SharÄ«f KhÄn: ḤÄshiya Ê¿alÄ Sharḥ al-AsbÄb (al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya), MS Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 267, fol. 1v.
Asad Ê¿AlÄ«: ḤÄshiyat Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, MS Aligarh, Tibbiya College 111, fols. 1vâ2r.
BuqrÄá¹ KhÄn: Tanqīḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4004, fol. 2v; BuqrÄá¹ KhÄn: TaÊ¿lÄ«qÄt Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1908, fol. 1r.
Afá¸al: Kashf al-ishkÄlÄt, MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 139, fol. 2r; al-ḤassanÄ«: Nuzhat al-khawÄá¹ir, vol. 7, p. 531; RaḥmÄn: DillÄ« aur á¹ibb-e yÅ«nÄnÄ«, p. 92.
Anonymous: ḤÄshiya Ê¿alÄ Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, MS Hyderabad, Salar Jung, Arabic Ṭibb 21, fol. 225v.
Robinson: âOttomans-Safavids-Mughalsâ, p. 152.
Alavi: Islam and Healing, p. 50.
Sufi: al-MinhÄj, p. 53; Rezavi: âOrganization of Educationâ, p. 393.
See Seema Alaviâs Islam and Healing, p. 52. She cites I.M. Boulderson, Collector, Bareilly, to Holt Mackenzie, Sec. to Gov. Gen., 29 January 1827, Extract, Bengal Pol. Consult, 5 June 1829, Boards Collection, F/4/1170, file no. 30640, 633â6, p. 515. Adam: State of Education in Bengal, p. 286.
Metcalf: Islamic Revival in British India, p. 103; Attewell: Refiguring Unani Tibb, p. 100.
Speziale: âRelation between Galenic Medicine and Sufismâ, p. 155; Speziale: âTradition and Modernizationâ, p. 11; Attewell: Refiguring Unani Tibb, p. 99.
Attewell: Refiguring Unani Tibb, p. 99.
Attewell: Refiguring Unani Tibb, p. 133. Attewell himself found the ijÄza in Tazimuddin Siddiqi: âNazim-e jehan Hakim Muhammad Aʾzam Khanâ, p. 234.
Quaiser: âPolitics, Culture, and Colonialismâ, p. 319.
Oriental College in Lahore was the first institution in India to offer degrees in á¹ibb, starting in 1872; Islamiyya College in 1892; Asefia Ṭibbiyya College in 1903; Delhiâs Ṭibbiyya College in 1916; Aligarhâs Ajmal Khan Ṭibbiyya College in 1927; Hyderabadâs Government Nizamiyya Tibbi College in 1939. Attewell: Refiguring Unani Tibb, pp. 96, 103, 106, 110; Lambert-Hurley: Muslim Women, p. 128.
Åen: âSultanâs Syllabus Revisitedâ, p. 202.
Emilie Savage-Smith records four types of comments on the text in her study of medieval Arabic marginalia in medical manuscripts: (1) comments and corrections recorded when a text is read out or studied in the presence of the author or another respected authority; (2) transcriptions of relevant passages from another treatise; (3) comments based on collation with other copies; and (4) comments that voice objections or refine ideas. Of these four, the second and fourth kinds allow a glimpse into reader response, shedding light on other sources and theories in medieval Arabic medicine, and marginalia in early modern medical manuscripts follow similar patterns. Savage-Smith: âBetween Reader and Textâ, pp. 82â83.
As opposed to the other group of marginalia in these manuscripts, the âcitationlessâ marginalia, which do not contain such references but tend to be more specific to local pharmacological knowledge.
Throughout the manuscripts of the Indian AsbÄb tradition, the margins exhibit citational marginalia in different formats. Some quote entire lines from á¹ibbÄ« sources, while others simply cite a scholarâs name and paraphrase from their work. Occasionally, signes de renvoi are used to note which line in the text the notation is referring to, often in the shape of an Arabic 7 or 8, using that corresponding number at the beginning of the marginal notation as well. But the approach, across the manuscripts, readers, and centuries, varies.
Within the margins of the 124 manuscripts of the Indian AsbÄb tradition that were studied for this research, 266 of the citational marginalia noted were explanatory and 60 were recommendations, with a further 29 noted to be scribal additions (355 in total). Of the explanatory marginalia, 150 notations were noted to refer to ailments and symptoms, while 38 explained anatomy, 39 focused on theory, and another 39 concentrated on treatment.
In translating from Galenâs Crises, Ḥunayn b. IsḥÄq (d. 259/873) translates the Greek word for phrenitis (
SharÄ«f KhÄn: al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya, MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4005, fol. 59r.
ArzÄnÄ«: Ṭibb-i Akbar, part 1, MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 47, fol. 42r.
Al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, MS Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 178, fol. 189v.
Though Ṭibb-i Akbar was only completed in 1112/1700, this 1699 copy comprises volume 1 of what is often a two-volume work, and may be among one of the first editions of the text. ArzÄnÄ«: Ṭibb-i Akbar, vol. 1, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1891, fol. 108v; ArzÄnÄ«, Ṭibb-i Akbar, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1846, fol. 66v; al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 2067, fol. 37v.
Ocular anatomy was deemed so complex that many manuscripts of the AsbÄb tradition also contain diagrams of the eye and the physics of sight. Al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MSS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 2067, fol. 62v; New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 2066, fol. 85v; Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 147, fol. 111r. SharÄ«f KhÄn: ḤÄshiyat Sharḥ al-AsbÄb (al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya), part 1, MS Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 796, fol. 297v.
Brentjes: Sciences in Islamicate Societies, p. 162.
Kordafshari: âThe Role of Phlebotomy (Fasd)â, p. 370.
Pormann and Savage-Smith: Medieval Islamic Medicine, p. 44.
Al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS Patna, Khuda Bakhsh Library, MS No. 2111 A, fol. 151r.
Al-SamarqandÄ«: al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Ind. Inst. Arab 18, fol. 52v.
There are more instances of scholars and texts cited (480) in citational marginalia than there are citational marginalia under consideration (355) because many notations include references to multiple scholars and/or sources.
Al-SamarqandÄ«: al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1808, fol. 1v.
Galenâs works were transmitted and translated by Ḥunayn b. IsḥÄq (d. 259/873), his son IsḥÄq b. Ḥunayn (d. 297/910), and his nephew Ḥubaysh b. al-AÊ¿sam (fl. ca. 245/860). Pormann and Savage-Smith: Medieval Islamic Medicine, p. 25; Ullmann: Islamic Medicine, pp. 10â11.
Al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 3999, fol. 166v; al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä«: al-Ṭibb al-nabawÄ«, pp. 63â64.
Al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 3999.
Elgood: Medical History of Persia, p. 63.
Ullmann: Islamic Medicine, p. 9.
The tradition of taḥqīq was a direct response opposed to the simple reiteration and explanation of previous scholarship. El-Rouayheb: Islamic Intellectual History, p. 32; Ullmann: Die Medizin im Islam, p. 237.
Langermann: âChapter on RasÄyanaâ, p. 150.
Brockelmann: Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, p. 626.
Iskandar: Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts, p. 182.
SharÄ«f KhÄn: al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya, MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4006, fol. 164v; al-SamarqandÄ«: al-AqrÄbÄdhÄ«n Ê¿alÄ tartÄ«b al-Ê¿ilal, MS Kolkata, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Coll. No. 440/465, Accn. No. II 68, fol. 33r.
RaḥmÄn: DillÄ« aur á¹ibb-e yÅ«nÄnÄ«, p. 74.
Brockelmann: Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, p. 626.
Al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 97, fol. 1r.
Iskandar: âal-SamarqandÄ«âs Medical Writingsâ, p. 469.
Azmi: History of Unani Medicine, p. 239.
SharÄ«f KhÄn: ḤÄshiyat Sharḥ AsbÄb (al-FawÄʾid al-sharÄ«fiyya), part 1, MS Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 796, fols. 116r, 123v, 242v.
ArzÄnÄ«: Ṭibb-i Akbar, vol. 1, MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 50, fol. 244r; Azmi: History of Unani Medicine, p. 228.
ArzÄnÄ«: Ṭibb-i Akbar, vol. 1, MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 50, fol. 244r.
Alam: âPursuit of Persianâ, p. 317.
ArzÄnÄ« explains in his introduction that he is translating al-KirmÄnÄ«âs Sharḥ al-AsbÄb from Arabic into Persian. ArzÄnÄ«: Ṭibb-i Akbar, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1981, fol. 1v.
ArzÄnÄ«: Ṭibb-i Akbar, vol. 2, MS Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 19. Thanks to my colleague and friend Anand Venkatkrishnan, Assistant Professor of the History of Religion in South Asia at the University of Chicago Divinity School, for helping me read through these Devanagari notations.
Alavi: Islam and Healing, pp. 50â51.
Al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 2067, fol. 219v.
Al-SamarqandÄ«: al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MS New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 1941, undated, fols. 114r, 161r; al-SamarqandÄ«: al-AqrÄbÄdhÄ«n Ê¿alÄ tartÄ«b al-Ê¿ilal, MS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4130, twelfth/eighteenth century, fol. 54v. al-KirmÄnÄ«: Sharḥ al-AsbÄb wa-l-Ê¿alÄmÄt, MSS Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 3999, twelfth/eighteenth century, fols. 1r, 367v (Ã2); Rampur, Raza Library, Arabic MS No. 4000, twelfth/eighteenth century, fol. 61r; New Delhi, Jamia Hamdard, Ṭibb 2067, 1235/1820, fol. 219v; Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Tibbiya College 147, 1159/1746, fol. 55r; Hyderabad, Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, Ṭib-e-Unani 178, 1027/1618, fols. 232v, 233v.