Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari (c. 838–c. 870
CECommon Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used world-wide for numbering the year part of the date...
) was a
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
hakim' and ' are two Arabic titles , derived from the same triliteral ḤKM "appoint, choose, judge". Compare the Hebrew title hakham.-Hakīm :...
,
Islamic scholarUlema refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
,
physicianIn the history of medicine, Islamic medicine or Arabic medicine refers to medicine developed in the medieval Islamic civilization and written in Arabic, the lingua franca of the Islamic civilization. Despite these names, a significant number of scientists during this period were not Arab...
and
psychologistMedieval Islamic sociology refers to the study of sociology and the social sciences in the medieval Islamic world. Early Islamic sociology responded to the challenges of social organization of diverse peoples all under common religious organization in the Islamic Caliphate, including the Rashidun,...
of
Persian Jewish{ethnic group|group=Persian Jews|image =...
or
ZoroastrianA Zoroastrian is an adherent to Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion that is based on the teachings and philosophies of Zoroaster....
descent, who produced the first
encyclopediaAn encyclopedia is a comprehensive written compendium that holds information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. Encyclopedias are divided into articles with one article on each subject covered...
of
medicineMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. He was a pioneer of
pediatricsPediatrics is a branch of medical care that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. The upper age limit ranges from age 12 to 21, depending on the country....
and the field of
child developmentChild development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....
. His stature, however, was eclipsed by his more famous pupil, Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi ("Rhazes").
Ali came from a well-known Jewish family of
MervMerv , formerly Achaemenid Satrapy of Margiana, and later Alexandria and Antiochia in Margiana , was a major oasis-city in Central Asia, on the historical Silk Road, located near today's Mary in Turkmenistan...
in Tabaristan (hence
al-Tabari – "from Tabaristan") but became an
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic convert under the Abbassid caliph
Al-Mu'tasimAbu Ishaq 'Abbas al-Mu'tasim ibn Harun , was an Abbasid caliph . He succeeded his half-brother al-Ma'mun...
(833-842), who took him into the service of the court, in which he continued under
Al-MutawakkilAl-Mutawakkil ˤAlā Allāh Jaˤfar ibn al-Muˤtasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861...
(847-861).
Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari (c. 838–c. 870
CECommon Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used world-wide for numbering the year part of the date...
) was a
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
hakim' and ' are two Arabic titles , derived from the same triliteral ḤKM "appoint, choose, judge". Compare the Hebrew title hakham.-Hakīm :...
,
Islamic scholarUlema refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
,
physicianIn the history of medicine, Islamic medicine or Arabic medicine refers to medicine developed in the medieval Islamic civilization and written in Arabic, the lingua franca of the Islamic civilization. Despite these names, a significant number of scientists during this period were not Arab...
and
psychologistMedieval Islamic sociology refers to the study of sociology and the social sciences in the medieval Islamic world. Early Islamic sociology responded to the challenges of social organization of diverse peoples all under common religious organization in the Islamic Caliphate, including the Rashidun,...
of
Persian Jewish{ethnic group|group=Persian Jews|image =...
or
ZoroastrianA Zoroastrian is an adherent to Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion that is based on the teachings and philosophies of Zoroaster....
descent, who produced the first
encyclopediaAn encyclopedia is a comprehensive written compendium that holds information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. Encyclopedias are divided into articles with one article on each subject covered...
of
medicineMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. He was a pioneer of
pediatricsPediatrics is a branch of medical care that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. The upper age limit ranges from age 12 to 21, depending on the country....
and the field of
child developmentChild development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....
. His stature, however, was eclipsed by his more famous pupil, Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi ("Rhazes").
Ali came from a well-known Jewish family of
MervMerv , formerly Achaemenid Satrapy of Margiana, and later Alexandria and Antiochia in Margiana , was a major oasis-city in Central Asia, on the historical Silk Road, located near today's Mary in Turkmenistan...
in Tabaristan (hence
al-Tabari – "from Tabaristan") but became an
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic convert under the Abbassid caliph
Al-Mu'tasimAbu Ishaq 'Abbas al-Mu'tasim ibn Harun , was an Abbasid caliph . He succeeded his half-brother al-Ma'mun...
(833-842), who took him into the service of the court, in which he continued under
Al-MutawakkilAl-Mutawakkil ˤAlā Allāh Jaˤfar ibn al-Muˤtasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861...
(847-861). His father
Sahl ibn BishrSahl ibn Bishr al-Israili, often known as Zahel or Zael was a Jewish astrologer, astronomer and mathematician from Tabaristan. He was the father of Ali ibn Sahl the famous scientist and physician, who became a convert to Islam.- His works :...
was a famous Astrologer.
Ali ibn Sahl was fluent in
SyriacSyriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from the 4th to the 8th centuries...
and
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
, the two sources for the medical tradition of
antiquityAncient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history in the Old World until the Early Middle Ages in Europe and the Qin Dynasty in China....
, which was lost to medieval Europe, and versed in fine calligraphy.
His works
- His Firdous al-Hikmah ("Paradise of Wisdom"), which he wrote in Arabic
Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
called also Al-Kunnash was a system of medicine in seven parts. He also translated it into Syriac, to give it wider usefulness. The information in Firdous al-Hikmah has never entered common circulation in the West because it was not edited until the 20th century, when Mohammed Zubair Siddiqui assembled an edition using the five surviving partial manuscripts. There is still no English translation.
- Tuhfat al-Muluk ("The King's Present")
- a work on the proper use of food, drink, and medicines.
- Hafzh al-Sihhah ("The Proper Care of Health"), following Greek and Indian authorities.
- Kitab al-Ruqa ("Book of Magic or Amulets")
- Kitab fi al-hijamah ("Treatise on Cupping")
- Kitab fi Tartib al-'Ardhiyah ("Treatise on the Preparation of Food")
For watching his complete work watch the documentary in external links by Kamran Ayub Yousafzai in which he informs that Tabbari actually wrote 14 book,and the places where available manuescripts of his books are laing.
Firdous al-Hikmah
Firdous al-Hikmah was the first known
encyclopediaAn encyclopedia is a comprehensive written compendium that holds information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. Encyclopedias are divided into articles with one article on each subject covered...
of
medicineIn the history of medicine, Islamic medicine or Arabic medicine refers to medicine developed in the medieval Islamic civilization and written in Arabic, the lingua franca of the Islamic civilization. Despite these names, a significant number of scientists during this period were not Arab...
, and was divided into 7 sections and 30 parts, with 360 chapters in total. It deals with
pediatricsPediatrics is a branch of medical care that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. The upper age limit ranges from age 12 to 21, depending on the country....
and
child developmentChild development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....
in depth, as well as
psychologyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...
and
psychotherapyPsychotherapy or personal counseling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.It aims to increase the individual's sense of their own well-being...
. In the fields of medicine and psychotherapy, the work was primarily influenced by
Islamic thoughtEarly Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar and lasting until the 6th century AH...
and ancient
Indian physiciansAyurveda is a system of traditional medicine native to India and practiced in other parts of the world as a form of alternative medicine. In Sanskrit, the word Ayurveda consists of the words , meaning 'life', and , meaning 'related to knowledge' or 'science'...
such as Sushruta and
CharakaCharak, sometimes spelled Caraka, born c. 300 BC in a Maga Brahmin family was one of the principal contributors to the ancient art and science of Ayurveda, a system of medicine and lifestyle developed in Ancient India...
. Unlike earlier physicians, however, al-Tabari emphasized strong ties between psychology and medicine, and the need of psychotherapy and counseling in the therapeutic treatment of patients. He wrote that patients frequently feel sick due to
delusionA delusion, in everyday language, is a fixed belief that is either false, fanciful, or derived from deception. Psychiatry defines the term more specifically as a belief that is pathological...
s or
imaginationImagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses...
, and that these can be treated through "wise counselling" by smart and witty physicians who could win the rapport and confidence of their patients, leading to a positive therapeutic outcome.
Quotes
On the Quran he said:
"When I was a Christian I used to say, as did an uncle of mine who was one of the learned and eloquent men, that eloquence is not one of the signs of prophethood because it is common to all the peoples; but when I discarded (blind) imitation and (old) customs and gave up adhering to (mere) habit and training and reflected upon the meanings of the Qur'an I came to know that what the followers of the Qur'an claimed for it was true. The fact is that I have not found any book, be it by an Arab or a Persian, an Indian or a Greek, right from the beginning of the world up to now, which contains at the same time praises of God, belief in the prophets and apostles, exhortations to good, everlasting deeds, command to do good and prohibition against doing evil, inspiration to the desire of paradise and to avoidance of hell-fire as this Qur'an does. So when a person brings to us a book of such qualities, which inspires such reverence and sweetness in the hearts and which has achieved such an overlasting success and he is (at the same time) an illiterate person who did never learnt the art of writing or rhetoric, that book is without any doubt one of the signs of his Prophethood."
Sources
- H. Suter: Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber (l0, 1900)
- M. Steinschneider: Die arabische Literatur der Juden (23-34, Frankfurt, 1902).
- Edward G. Browne
Edward Granville Browne , born in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, England, was a British orientalist who published numerous articles and books of academic value, mainly in the areas of history and literature...
, Islamic Medicine, 2002, p. 37-38, ISBN 81-87570-19-9
External links
For some new discoveries about Ali Rabban-al-Tabbari,watch first short video documentary on Tabbari by Kamran Ayub Yousafzai of Peshawar Pakistan.
- http://www.youtube.com/user/KamranAyubYousafzai#play/all/uploads-all/0/9v4iA4jTqZg
- http://www.unhas.ac.id/~rhiza/saintis/tabari.html