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Gleanings from an Arabist's Workshop: Current Trends in the Study of Medieval Islamic Science and Medicine Author(s): Emilie

Savage-Smith Reviewed work(s): Source: Isis, Vol. 79, No. 2 (Jun., 1988), pp. 246-266 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/233610 . Accessed: 12/01/2012 18:55
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SPECIAL SECTION ON ISLAMIC SCIENCE


GLEANINGS FROM AN ARABIST'S WORKSHOP
CURRENT TRENDS IN THE STUDY OF MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC SCIENCE AND MEDICINE

By EmilieSavage-Smith* The decade of the 1980shas seen an unprecedentedgrowth of activity and maturity in the history of Islamic science and medicine. When compared with other areas of the history of science and medicine, however, the specialty may appear somewhat underdevelopedand antiquated.' Because the field has been slow to appreciatethe methods and concerns of other historians, much of what has been published fails to interest a larger audience. An overriding concern with cataloguing and assessing manuscriptsources as well as editing texts is immediately apparentfrom the bulk of recent publications. The field has been dominatedby an interest in bibliographyand sources of the sort that characterized ancient, medieval, and Renaissance studies in earliergenerations;and to many historians today this focus on text and translationappearsoutdated. Part of the reason for this apparentbackwardnessand failureto reflect current historical trends is that the specialty is a relatively recent development, and scholars have not been able to profit (as have historians of ancient Western science, for example) from large quantities of edited texts and catalogues prepared in earliergenerations.In fact, despite the recent increase in publishedtexts and translations, the major medieval scientific and medical treatises, usually quite lengthy, still await reliable translationsand editions, and a great deal of potentially importantmateriallies unexaminedexcept, perhaps, by a cataloguer who duly noted the title. It is difficultfor a nonspecialist to appreciatethat the percentage of written sources in this historical discipline that have been studied is actually quite small, for the field comprehendsan area extendingfrom Spain to Western India and a time span of at least nine centuries. In these circumstances, attention to the location and content of materialsis not unreasonable,and since most of these medieval written sources tend to be formal treatises or manuals compiled for private use, the applicationof quantitativemethods, so much a part of modern historical scholarship,is largely inappropriate. The specialty has also been plagued by the difficulties of the languages involved (Arabic, Persian, and Turkish),which both discouragepeople from entering the field and serve as a barrier to nonspecialists. To counterbalance this tendency of the area to become isolated, it is especially incumbentupon everyone working in it to minimize the problems facing the nonspecialist. For example, standardizingthe forms of names and the systems of transliterationwould
* Medical History Division, Department Anatomy, and Von Grunebaum Centerfor Near Eastof 90024-1763. ern Studies, Universityof California,Los Angeles, California The bibliographical headingsof the works on Islamicscience discussed in this essay are presented format. I wish to as footnotes, but contain the usual full information,as available,in bibliographical thank Frances CoulbornKohlerfor her carefuleditingof this literaturereview. 1 Cf., e.g., Nancy G. Siraisi, "Some CurrentTrends in the Study of RenaissanceMedicine,"Renaissance Quarterly, 1984,37:588-600.

ISIS, 1988,79 : 246-272

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allow easier recognition of and reference to Islamic figures. While the system used in the Encyclopaediaof Islam is accepted by much of the modernacademic community, neither it nor any other is employed universally. The difficulty and strangeness of the languages and, to a lesser extent, the lack of appeal to the immediate and familiar, tend to discourage Western readers, except perhaps those interested in Islam as a vehicle by which ideas reached the West. In addition,the field has been affected by a debate touchingall areas of Islamic history-the controversy over Orientalism.In today's context this debate contrasts the insights and linguistic capabilities of the native speaker with those of the Western scholar who learns the languageas a second languageor sometimes only as a reading language. Thus it pits Middle Easterner against Westerner, native speaker againstone who acquiredthe languagelater, and sometimes Muslim against non-Muslim.Instead of encouragingcooperationand the exchange of ideas, emphasis on this dichotomy discouragespeople from enteringthe field and from readingwhat others with differentperspectives have written. I would like to suggest that, at least as far as the medieval and early modern material is concerned, the gulf between the scholar and the scientific practices and culture that are the objects of study is no greaterfor the modernnon-native speaker than for the native speaker, and is quite comparableto what the Western historian of Byzantine Greek or medieval Latin science encounters. The scientific and culturalmentalitiesof the medieval period and the nuances of the classical languages are as distant from the modernMiddle Easterneras from the modern European scholar. All historians, in trying to interpreta past society on its own terms are faced with the dilemmaof never knowingto what extent they can understandand explain events, when time and circumstanceshave destroyed not only most of the evidence but the very frameworkof attitudesand conceptions in which they occurred. For example, how can anyone today fully understand a society that was verbal ratherthan visual, a society in which the role of illustration was frequentlydifferentfrom what it is today? Or a society that continuedto use only Ptolemaicconstellationslong after the southernskies had been mapped, or continued to produce copies of medieval anatomicaldiagramslong after the anatomicaldiscoveries of Vesalius and others were known in the Middle East?
HISTORIOGRAPHICAL APPROACHES AND NEEDS

Among historians of Islamic science and medicine, attention has for the most part been focused on a small number of individual medieval figures and, even more, on individualtreatises. The questions that have customarilybeen asked of and transmissionof early Islamic science concern the reception, transformation, earlier scientific ideas. The field has also had its share of devotees of precursoror ism, whose concern is to find proto-Copernican proto-Harveyanor other protomodernideas in the medievalliterature.Yet the question of how far the learned writings reflected actual practices and conditions within the society has only recently been raised by historians of Islamic science and needs to be explored more fully. For the most part, archivalmaterials,where they exist, and nonwritten sources, such as artifacts and archaeologicaland paleopathologicalremains, have yet to be as fully explored as in other specialties. A notable exception to the neglect of nonwrittenmaterialis the study of Islamic astronomicalinstruments, which has attractedmuch attentionover the years. Alongside this rathertraditionaltext-boundapproachto the history of Islamic science and medicine are some encouragingtrends that reflect methods used in social history. For example, the originand role of institutions, such as the hospital, and societal reactions to the insane are currently objects of much study,

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particularlyby Michael Dols. Actual medical practice in the society at large and across the broadest possible social spectrum has attracted the attention of Lawrence Conrad.2Dols and Conrad, as well as others, have investigated responses to epidemic diseases, especially the plague, and indigenous traditions and the role of occult and divinatorypractices are also attractingserious study. In general, regional diversity and the multifacetednatureof practices have been emphasizedmore by recent historiansof medicine than by historiansof the physical sciences. However, no attempt has been made to profilelocal medical communities, considering the various levels of training, wealth, and status of the practitioners, as social historians of Western medicine have done. Nor has as much attention been given to a few celebrated centers of learningas in Western medieval and Renaissance studies, where considerable scholarshiphas been devoted to centers such as Padua and Montpellier. A. I. Sabra has recently been concerned with reassessing the traditionalview of Western scholars toward Islamic science, namely, that it was merely a holding ground for Hellenistic and Byzantine ideas until they were again encountered firsthandby Western readers. Sabra is urginga redefinitionof terms and a new approachto early Islamic science that would view it as a phenomenonof Islamic civilization itself.3 Such admonitionscannot but be a beneficialand creative force in the field. Comprehensiveand interpretativehistories of Islamic science have yet to be published. The history of astronomy and mathematicsin medieval Islamic sociof ety is in particularneed of a broaderhistoricalinterpretation its development, for historians of Islamic astronomy and mathematics have tended, even more than medical historians, to restrict themselves to analyzing the theoretical contents of the extant texts. Furtherconsiderationmust be given to the interaction of scientific intellectual traditions with technical problems, industrialconcerns and constraints, military requirements,timekeepingneeds, shifting imperatives of public policy, and educationaland religious institutions.The role in society of astronomers, astrologers, mathematicians,physicians, and others learned in scientific matters, both within and outside the courts, could well be explored, as could the place of instrumentmakers in the scientific and medical communities. Nearly all the attention of historians of Islamic science has been directed toward Arabic sources, so that the vast quantityof Turkishand Persianmanuscript and archival sources remain virtuallyuntouched. In these areas currentwork is still at the cataloguingstage, with only one or two people workingon a text and translation.It will be quite some time before a more synthetic approach,employing currenthistorical methods and questions, is appliedto the history of science in Persian-and Turkish-speaking lands, though of course Arabic was the learned languagethroughoutthose lands in the early medieval period.
EDITIONS, TRANSLATIONS, AND SYNTHETIC WORKS

The monographsof the 1980s, many of which are reviewed here, consist for the most part of editions and translationsof medieval texts, reprintsof older studies and catalogues of manuscriptsources; only a few are synthetic works. As indicated above, there are more of these last in medicine than in the sciences.
2

MichaelW. Dols. "TheOriginsof the IslamicHospital:Mythand Reality."Bulletinof the History

of Medicine, 1987, 61:367-390.

MichaelW. Dols. "Insanityand Its Treatment IslamicSociety." MedicalHistory, 1987,31:1-14. in LawrenceI. Conrad."TheSocial Structureof Medicinein MedievalIslam."Bulletinof the Society
for the Social History of Medicine, 1985, 37:11-15.
3 A. I. Sabra. "The Appropriation and SubsequentNaturalizationof Greek Science in Medieval Islam: A Preliminary Statement."History of Science, 1987,25:223-243.

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Medicine

Seldom has one topic been traced throughthe medieval Islamic literature,but an outstandingexample of this approachis the definitiveanalysis of theories regarding reproduction, heredity, and prenatal development by Ursula Weisser.4 In addition to surveying the earlier Aristotelian and Galenic writings, Weisser has examined the relevant sections of the major Arabic medical encyclopedias and embryologicalmonographsas well as two tracts concerned solely with obstetrical and pediatric matters. The result is an exhaustive study of the changingfortunes of certain ideas through a thousand years of medical writing. This welldocumented study, with its extensive bibliographyand numerous indexes, deserves to be more readily available. Several recent synthetic interpretationsappearwith an edited text; this is the case for one of the most importantand useful, the historical essay written by Michael Dols as an introductionto his translationof a tract written in the eleventh century by Ibn Ridwan, a self-taughtbut learnedand successful physician in
Cairo.5 In his treatise On the Prevention of Bodily Ills in Egypt, written in re-

sponse to the claim of a Tunisiandoctor that Egypt was particularlyunhealthy, Ibn Ridwan examined the climatologicalproblems of Egypt and proper procedures for preventingand treatingepidemic and endemic diseases. Dols's English translationis accompaniedby the Arabic text, edited by Adil Gamalfrom seven manuscriptcopies. There are problems with the volume as a whole. The Arabic section is so poorly printed as to be nearly illegible except with a strong glass, which then reveals many typographicalerrors and overcrowding. Moreover, the translation refers to the Arabic text by folio numbers, which are so inconspicuous in the does not correspond to Arabic as to be nearly useless, while the paragraphing that in the translation.On the other hand, the translationis unusuallyreadableas well as reliable, and its notes are informative.Discrepancies do occur between the translationand the text; these seem to reflect a conflict in methodology between editor and translatorand thus illustratethe pitfalls of collaboration.Glossaries of Arabic and English terms and subject indexes complete the volume. Dols has used his translationand edition of Ibn Ridwan's tract as a vehicle for an imaginativescholarly essay on the medical profession in early medieval Islamic society, the education and trainingof physicians, and the generaltherapeutic concepts that were the foundationof their practice. By combiningsuch a general essay with a translationand edition of a text, Dols has produceda substantialand authoritativeguide to early medieval Islamic medicalpractice. The problemwith combiningthese items into one volume, however, is that the publicationtends to be classified bibliographically merely as a text with translationand the interpretative essay to be overlooked. Yet this piece is one of the best introductionsto medieval Islamic medicine now available and is likely to remain so for some time. A paperback printing of the essay, along with the translation of Ibn Ridwan's treatise, would be a useful teaching aid, especially if it were combined with a general essay on Islamic medicine written earlier by Manfred Ullmann. The latter also could profitfrom a paperbackprinting.6
4 Ursula Weisser. Zeugung, Vererbung und Pranatale Entwicklung in der Medizin des arabisch-

HanneloreLiuVerlagsbuchhandlung islamischenMittelalters.xi + 571 pp., bibl., indexes. Erlangen: ling, 1983.


5

cAli ibn Ridwan. Medieval Islamic Medicine: Ibn Ridwan's Treatise "On the Prevention of Bodily

Ills in Egypt." Translatedwith an introductionby MichaelW. Dols. Arabic text edited by Adil S. Gamal. (ComparativeStudies of Health Systems and Medical Care.) xv + 186 + 63 (Arabic)pp., Press, 1984. illus., bibl., indexes. Berkeley/LosAngeles/London:Universityof California EdinburghUniversity 6 Manfred Ullmann.Islamic Medicine. (Islamic Surveys, 11.) Edinburgh: Press, 1978.

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The use of astrology in medical diagnosis and prognosis is the subject of a recent monograph by Felix Klein-Franke entitled latromathematics in Islam, which again combines a text and translationwith an interpretativeessay.7 KleinFranke does not present the rationalefor applyingthe term iatromathematicsto astrological medicine, and in fact it might be more appropriatelyapplied to the use of numerical divinatory systems such as jafr, which became enormously popularin Islamic countries at a slightly later date than the period Klein-Franke
examines.

The main Arabic text presented by Klein-Frankeis a small tract written in the ninth century by Ibn al-Salt, who was personally acquainted with the Arabic ibn translatorIshaq ibn Hunayn and the physician Yuihanna BakhtishTic.Other members of the Bakhtishfic family, which for eight generations served the caliphs as physicians and advisers, have been the focus of Klein-Franke'sprevious scholarship, and throughthis tract by Ibn al-Salt much is to be learned of nowlost astrological writings by Yuihannaibn Bakhtishtic. The Arabic text of Ibn al-Salt's tract is supplementedby an English summary,which is at times drastically condensed and highly interpretative. Nearly all astrological manuals had sections dealing with medical prognosis, and the writingsof the leadingIslamic authorityin astrology, AbuiMacshar, were
no exception. The Kitab al-Mudkhal al-kabfr, known in Latin as the Liber intro-

ductoriusmaior, was writtenby AbuiMacsharin 848, and thoughit was probably the most influentialastrological writing in both Europe and the Middle East, it has never seen a modern edition and printingin either Arabic or Latin. In an effort to remedy this scholarly lacuna partially, Klein-Frankehas included in Iatromathematics in Islam the Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew versions, accompanied by full English translations,of some excerpts in which, amongother things, AbuiMacshar berates a class of urban physician devoted primarilyto financial gain. Abui Macshar says they are unlearned men, ignorant of sound medical practices as well as of astrology's fundamentalimportanceto medicine as a guide to the nature and course of illness and the timing of treatment. Preceding these documents of Islamic astrological medicine is an essay concerned with the spheres of activity of the physician and astrologer and their common concern for prognosis. This is a somewhat erraticassemblageof quotations used to illustratecertain issues, such as the conflict between prognosis and orthodox Islamic theology, with its total reliance upon God's will and omnipotence. In addition to some linguistic obscurities that occur because English is a second language for the author, the essay is marred by the lack of sufficient documentationfor some interpretationsand the failure to develop others. For example, Klein-Frankeasserts that AbuiMacshar's astrologicalmanualwas fundamentalto the subsequentdevelopmentof astrology, which, he says, "led to the rapidlydeteriorating position of the physicianof subsequentgenerations"(p. 57). No evidence is presented for the assertion that the status of physicians deteriorated, and in fact it appearsto be contradictedby much of the availableevidence. Nor does Klein-Frankeexplain how physicians resolved the apparentdilemma that if astrology was indeed true and events were determinedby planetary and zodiacal influence, then there was little need for medicine. Moreover, little is said of the role of astrology in the manualsdevoted primarilyto medicine. Yet, as in his earlier writings, Klein-Frankehas drawn attention to literary sources that deserve serious historicalexaminationand has raised questions and suggested interpretations that, thoughnot always conclusively argued, stand as a challenge to historians.
7 Felix Klein-Franke. Iatromathematics in Islam: A Study on Yuhanna Ibn as-Salt's Book on "As-

trological Medicine." (Texte und Studienzur Orientalistik,3.) ii + 161 pp., index. Hildesheim/Zurich/New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1984.?7.45 (paper).

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Editions and translationsof Arabic medical texts that do not include interpretative studies have also been published recently. A treatise on therapeuticsand diagnostics, also written by Ibn Ridwan, has been edited and translated by Jacques Grand'Henry.The first part appearedin 1979;the second volume, containing the section on diagnostics accompaniedby a glossary, was published in 1984 (reviewed in Isis, 1985, 76:434-435). Yet another work of Ibn Ridwan's, this one concerned with ancient Greek medical authors, has been edited and translated by Albert Dietrich. Manfred Ullmann has continued his retrieval of the writings of the Greek physician Rufus of Ephesus, who wrote at the start of the second century, by editingthe Arabic translationof Rufus's tract on jaundice (reviewed in Isis, 1985, 76:118). Also, the Arabic versions of Dioscorides' Materia medica have been examined by M. M. Sadek, who focused on the illustrations, chapter headings, and colophons of the Arabic manuscriptsin a preliminary attemptto sort out the complex Arabic tradition(see Isis, 1985, 76:633-634, for a review).8 In 1943 Max Meyerhof, an eminent historianof medicine living in Cairo, purchased a manuscriptof a tract written in the twelfth century by Ibn Jumayc, a Jewish physician who worked in Egypt at the court of Saladin. The book had been written for Saladin himself, and the copy Meyerhof acquired was transcribed in 1180, duringSaladin's lifetime. In 1945 Meyerhof publisheda translation of a section giving a history of medicine in Greek and Islamic lands. After Meyerhof's death in the same year nothing furtherwas done on this important writing, and the location of his manuscriptis still unknown. HartmutFahndrich, however, has recently employed an Istanbulcopy of the same work to print the Arabic text and an English translationof the entire treatise.9It is concerned not only with medical history, but with the deplorable state of contemporarymedicine and ways in which it might be improved. Ibn Jumayc borrowedfrom many sources, includingIbn Ridwan, and thus provides insight into medical education in Saladin's day. This slim volume is a welcome edition to our knowledge of Islamic medicine, though Fahndrich's translation occasionally needs to be checked against the Arabic text. In contrast to the Greek-basedmedicine espoused by such learned physicians as Ibn Jumayc and Ibn Ridwan, anothertype of medicine, called propheticmedicine, was also current.This approachto medical care assumed the religious position that knowledge could be obtainedonly from revelation, the prophetMuhammad, and the customs and opinions of his immediate followers. Such treatises were usually written by clerics ratherthan physicians, and diet and simple drugs formed the main therapy, with many folkloric customs included. Although they
8 CMAi ibn Ridwan. Le Livre de la methode du medicinde cAlf b. Ridwan (998-1067). Arabictext Louvain-la-Neuve,Belgium:Instiedited and translatedwith commentaryby JacquesGrand'Henry. tut Orientalistede l'UniversiteCatholiquede Louvain. (Paper.)Volume I: Introduction-Therapeutique. (Publicationsde l'Institut Orientalistede Louvain, 20.) xii + 109 pp., illus. 1979. Volume II: Diagnostic-Glossaire. (Publicationsde l'InstitutOrientalistede Louvain, 31.) viii + 188 pp., bibl. 56, 1984. (Distributedby EditionsPeeters, Grand'rue B-1348, Louvain-la-Neuve.)
CAli ibn Ridwan. Uber den Weg zur Gliickseligkeit durch den arztlichen Beruf. Edited and trans-

der lated with commentaryby AlbertDietrich.(Abhandlungen Akademieder Wissenschaftenin GotKlasse, 3.129.) 74 pp. Gottingen:Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht,1982. tingen, Philologisch-historische
Rufus of Ephesus. Die Schrift des Rufus von Ephesos Uber die Gelbsucht in arabischer und latein-

der ischer Ubersetzung.Edited by ManfredUllmann.(Abhandlungen Akademieder Wissenschaften Klasse, 3.138.) 87 pp., illus., apps. Gottingen:Vandenhoeck& in Gottingen,Philologisch-historische Ruprecht, 1983.DM 68 (paper).
Mahmoud M. Sadek. The Arabic Materia Medica of Dioscorides. x + 229 pp., illus., bibl., indexes.

Quebec: Les Editionsdu Sphinx, 1983. St-Jean-Chrysostome,


9 Ibn Jumayc. Treatise to Salah ad-Dfn on the Revival of the Art of Medicine. Edited and trans-

fur lated by HartmutFahndrich.(Abhandlungen die Kunde des Morgenlandes,46.3.) Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1983.(Paper.)

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Hooks used in eye surgery.


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Madrid,

Escurial

MS Arab. 835,

folio 174r, from a treatise by


al-Gh,fiqT, Muhammad edited and translated in part by Max Meyerhof as AI-morchid fiX 1kohhl, ou Le guide d'oculiste

(Barcelona: Masnou, 1933) (see page 257 below).

were quite popular, especially in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, few such tracts have been printedin modemn criticaleditions. Recently, however, the prophetic medicine treatise by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyah(d. 1350)has been critically edited by Shucayb and cAbd al-Qadiral-Arna:lfitand published simultaneously in Beirut and Kuwait.10Though the volume has no index or bibliography, it is a beautifullyprinted and carefully edited version of an influentialtext. An English translationby Penelope Johnstone of the OrientalInstitute in Oxford
is near completion.

Another folkloric tradition,magicalmedicine, is the subject of a treatise attributed to the twelfth-centurypolymath Abrahamibn Ezra and published now for the first time.1' The Hebrew treatise is based, though not exclusively, on a lost Arabic tract by tho Andalusian physician cAbd al-Rahimanibn al-Haytham al-Qurtubi,who died in 951 (and who should not be confused with the famous writer on optics of a similarname). It records the everyday medical practices of
10 Ibn Qayyimal-Jawziyah. Al-Tibbal-Nabdwt (Propheticmedicine).Editedby Shucaybal-Arna'ut and cAbd al-Qadiral-Arna'ut. (In Arabic.)423 pp. Beirut:Mu'assasat al-Risalah; Kuwait:Maktabat al-Manaral-Islamiyah,1984. I' Abraham ibn Ezra [spurious]. Sefer Hanisyonot: The Book of Medical Experiences Attributed to Abraham ibn Ezra; Medical Theory, Rational and Magical Therapy; A Study in Medievalism. Edited

with translationand commentaryby J. 0. Leibowitzand S. Marcus. 345 pp., illus., bibl., index. Jerusalem:MagnesPress, Hebrew University, 1984.$28.

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the less learned section of society in tenth- to twelfth-centurySpain, which employed more magicalthan rationaltherapies. The contents are arrangedaccording to anatomical structure, and all conditions are treated by the applicationof medicamentsor other substances, with the frequent use of sympathetic cures and amulets. Gynecological problems are a major concern, but surgery is not a part of the manual, though anesthetics and analgesics are discussed. Notable throughoutis the absence of reference to astrological medicine. These remedies were set down, according to the compiler, "since there are many people who cannot buy what they need, and also because qualifiedhealers cannot be found in every place" (p. 127). The range of pathological conditions included is much more limited than in the medical encyclopedias composed for the use of formally trainedphysicians. Though its approachis magical, the treatise is part of a genre of medical writingsin which recipes for drugremedies were said by the author or "experimenter"to have been tried or "tested" (Arabic mujarrab,Hebrew nisiti), a claim that obviously enhanced their appeal. J. 0. Leibowitz and S. Marcus have edited the Hebrew text and presented an English translationand commentary. In a preliminaryessay the editors suggest some plausiblemotivationsfor the use of certainmagicalcures. Throughouttheir commentaryand introduction,however, they intersperseunnecessary reminders of the inadequacy of the procedures and sometimes jarring comparisons with modernmethods of treatment.They do not always appearto be familiarwith the classification of diseases in other medieval manuals, nor are they entirely conversant with the modern studies of similar Byzantine and Islamic sources. The result is that while some comments are interesting,provocative, and informative, others are unnecessary, misleading, and distracting.Yet Leibowitz and Marcus have succeeded in setting forth for modernreaders an importanttype of medical text usually avoided by scholars because of the difficultiesinherentin the genre.
Mathematics

Two new editions and several synthetic studies have appearedon Islamic mathematics. The eleventh-centuryEgyptianmathematician al-Haytham,known in Ibn Latin as Alhazen, is the subject of two importantpublications:the first volume of A. I. Sabra's critical edition of the Arabic text of his treatise on optics, has now appeared;while his completion of the treatise on conics begun by Apollonios of Perga has been publishedin an edition, translation,and analysis by J. P. Hogendijk. Both were recently reviewed in Isis (1984, 75:609-611, and 1986, 77:365367). In addition, Roshdi Rashed has published a volume of meticulous studies on various aspects of mathematicalthought in medieval Islam, while J. L. Berggren has issued a useful survey of the present state of our knowledge about medieval Islamic mathematics.12
12

Al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham. Kitab al-Manazir: Books I-II-III

(On Direct Vision). Edited with

I. introduction,Arabic-Latinglossaries, and concordancetables by Abdelhamid Sabra. (Preface in English, text in Arabic.) 789 pp., illus., apps., indexes. Kuwait:National Councilfor Culture,Arts, and Letters, 1983. $50. Ibn al-Haytham's Completionof the Conics. Edited with translationand commentariesby J. P. Hogendijk.(Sources in the History of Mathematicsand Physical Sciences, 7.) 415 pp., illus., figs., 1985. $98. Springer-Verlag, bibl., indexes. New York/Berlin/Heidelberg:
Roshdi Rashed. Entre arithme'tique et algebre: Recherches sur l'histoire des mathematiques

arabes. (CollectionSciences et PhilosophieArabes, Etudes et Reprises.)321 pp., illus., index. Paris: Societe d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1984. Fr 230 (paper). J. L. Berggren. "History of Mathematicsin the Islamic World: The Present State of the Art."
Bulletin of the Middle East Studies Association, 1985, 19:9-33.

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Still concerned with mathematics, but touching on topics of interest to a broader audience, is a collection of essays by A. A. al-Daffa and J. J. Stroyls.13 This volume will no doubt cause much consternation and controversy in the academic world. Indeed, one outspoken objection has already been sounded by
David King in a review in the Bulletin of the Middle East Studies Association

(1985, 19:243-245).The volume is certainlynot a study in the traditionof mathematical history exemplified by E. S. Kennedy or Roshdi Rashed, which is founded upon detailed mathematicalanalysis of medieval texts. Rather, it is a collection of seven disparateessays that use secondary sources to a large extent, but also work with some Arabic and Latin printedtexts. The first essay surveys recent scholarshipconcerningthe transmissionof Arabic science to the Latin West and considers in particularhow the theories of CharlesHomer Haskins need to be modifiedin light of these studies. The authors draw attention to the ideas of Norman Daniel and T. F. Glick and suggest how they are applicableto the history of Islamic science and technology. The following two essays are concerned with "mumpsimus,"which the authors define as "an adherence to exposed, but customary errors" (p. 19), as illustratedby two mathematicaltopics: the Pythagoreantheorem and the supposed medieval Islamic use of logarithms. The fourth chapter undertakesa survey of Islamic attempts to prove the parallel,or fifth, postulate of Euclid, culminatingin the work of Nasir al-Din al-Tiisi in the thirteenthcentury. The methods employed in this essay are not the orthodox historicaluses of internalevidence and direct citation of sources, but involve a novel way the authors have devised to classify the medieval work on the parallelpostulate into logically equivalentgroups based on geometric equivalence theory. The fifth essay considers and attempts to refute George Sarton's dismissal of Avicenna as a serious mathematician.The sixth essay, employingthe older studies of Heinrich Suter and the more recent work of Kennedy and Rashed, discusses evidence for numerical analysis to be found in medieval Near Eastern texts, while the final contributionconcerns two schools of approachto handling equations in medieval Islam, the geometric and the numerical,and speculates on possible connections between the two. The purpose of the volume is to challenge certainpreconceived notions prevalent among some historians of science, and while al-Daffa and Stroyls do not always elaborate or document points conclusively-and indeed some of the interpretations they offer may prove invalid-their ideas are provocative and should stimulatehistoriansto serious discussion.
Physical Sciences

The physical sciences in medievalIslam have also been the object of much recent scholarship. Among the numerous medieval alchemical writings, some of the most influentialwere those attributedto Jabiribn Hayyan, or Geber, as he was known in Latin. This is a shadowy figurefrom the end of the ninth or the early tenth century, though some recent scholars have arguedthat he lived a century earlier. Despite the scholarlyattentiongiven to Jabiribn Hayyan and the alchemtranslationspubical tradition, there have until now been no modern-language lished of most of the writings. The Book of Seventy contains seven groups of ten treatises and presents a systematic exposition of the alchemical teachings asso13

Ali A. Al-Daffa; John J. Stroyls. Studies in the Exact Sciences in Medieval Islam. x + 243 pp.,

figs., apps., bibl. Dhahran, Saudi Arabia: University of Petroleum and Minerals; Chicester/New York/Brisbane: John Wiley & Sons, 1984.?20, $30.

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ciated with the name Geber. The Latin translation,Liber de septuaginta, was edited by MarcellinBertholet in 1906, and a few chaptersfrom the Arabic original were published by Paul Kraus in 1935. A complete Germantranslationwas preparedover forty years ago by MartinPlessner, but remainsunpublished. Consequently, Pierre Lory's French translationof the first ten treatises of the Book of Seventy is especially welcome.14Lory employed six Arabic manuscripts in preparinghis translation;the Arabic text, however, is still unpublished.The translationis preceded by a brief introductiondiscussing the alchemical orientation and language, the social role of medieval alchemists, and the differingmodern views as to the origin of the Jabirianwritings. A concludingessay concerns various terms employed in the tract, and historical notes and a bibliography complete the volume. The absence of an index, however, severely limits the usefulness of the translation.Nonetheless, this volume at last makes available a reliable modern-language guide to at least some of the earliest Islamic alchemical literature. A major study of Islamic cosmology is to be found in Anton Heinen's edition tract by al-Suyiti (aland translationof and commentaryon a fifteenth-century ready reviewed in Isis, 1985, 76:124-125). Heinen, like Dols, prefaced his meticulous text and translationwith an extensive, well-argued,and imaginativeinterpretative essay on early Islamic cosmological concerns. In this case, too, the edited text is the point of departurefor an historical interpretationof broader interest than the description "text-translation-commentary" would indicate.15 In the area of astronomyproperthere are also recent publicationsof note. Paul Kunitzsch continued his detailed examination of star names and astronomical nomenclaturewith two monographsrecently reviewed in Isis (1985, 76:435,632). The fourth-largestmuseum collection of astrolabesin the world-that at the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution-has now been catalogued by Sharon Gibbs, with the assistance of George Saliba, in a volume recently reviewed in Isis (1986, 77:711-713).16 The fifty-two astrolabes described in the catalogue date from the eleventh to the nineteenth century, and the majorityare Islamic. It should be noted, however, that despite the title seven of the instrumentsare in fact no longer at the museum. The catalogue includes photographs, transcribedArabic and Persian inscriptions, translations, and a useful study of the gazeteers. The work, however, is severely marred by inconsistent and sometimes incorrect renderingsof Arabic words. Some vowels have overbars when they should not; others lack them when they should have them. Names occasionally are spelled inconsistently
14

Jabir ibn Hayyan. Dix traite's d'alchemie: Les dix premiers traites du "Livre des Soixante-dix."

Translatedwith commentaryby Pierre Lory. (La Bibliothequede l'Islam: Textes.) 318 pp., bibl. Paris:Editions Sinbad, 1983. Fr 150 (paper).
15 Anton M. Heinen. Islamic Cosmology: A Study of as-Suyfili's al-Hay'a as-sanlya fi l-hay'a as-sunniya with Critical Edition, Translation, and Commentary. (Deutschen Morgenlandischen Ge-

sellschaft, BeiruterTexte und Studien, 27.) viii + 289 + 79 (Arabic)pp., bibl., index. Beirut/Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1983.DM 78 (paper).
16

Paul Kunitzsch. Glossar der arabischen Fachausdrucke in der mittelalterlichen europaischen

Astrolabliteratur.(Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Gottingen. I. PhilologischGottingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht,1983. historischeKlasse, 1982, 11.) 111pp., indexes.
Paul Kunitzsch. Uber eine anwda-Tradition mit bisher unbekannten Sternnamen. (Beitrage zur

der Lexikographiedes Klassischen Arabisch, 4.) (Sitsungsberichte Bayerische Akademie der WisKlasse, 1983, 5.) 118 pp., app., index. Munich: Verlag der senschaften, Philosophisch-historische BayerischenAkademieder Wissenschaften,1983.
Sharon Gibbs; George Saliba. Planispheric Astrolabes from the National Museum of American

History. (SmithsonianStudies in History and Technology, 45.) viii + 231 pp., illus., apps., bibl., index. Washington,D.C.: SmithsonianInstitutionPress, 1984.

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in (e.g., Hamayoni in the text and Hiumayfuni the notes) and sometimes interpreted incorrectly (e.g., al-Hadadinstead of the Persian name Allahdadfor the progenitorof a four-generation family of astrolabemakersin MughalIndia). Furthermore,it is highly idiosyncraticto use Ben to denote "son of' when Ibn is the standardform in modern scholarship.These may appearto be small points of no immediateinterest to nonspecialists. Yet it is precisely non-Arabistswho are the most confused by such carelessness, for they frequentlyhave difficultyrecognizing a person or term when they encounter it spelled in a differentmanner.
REPRINTS OF EARLIER WORK

During the period under review several reprints of significantolder studies by orientalists appeared.The collection of studies by E. S. Kennedy on mathematical and astronomicaltopics in Islam has already received attentionin Isis (1984, 75:758-759),as has the second volume of the collected writingsof Willy Hartner, whose diverse interests included astronomicaldoctrines in Islam and their transmission to Europe (see Isis, 1986, 77:184-185). Recent articles and reviews by David A. King on Islamic mathematicalastronomyand astronomicalinstruments have been reprintedin two volumes by VariorumReprints in London, in 1986 and 1987.17 The reprintingof the voluminous studies on Islamic science by EilhardWiedemann, who died in 1928,is now complete. A three-volumecompilationof articles now supplementsthe publicationin 1970 of two volumes of studies Wiedemann These five volumes had originally published in a journal printed in Erlangen.18 make availableto modern-dayscholars the work of a learnedand most important scholar whose formidable contributions to many different aspects of Islamic science have not been given the attention they deserve recently, primarilybecause many were inaccessible. These volumes of Wiedemann's writings are models of what such a series should be, for they present the entire productionof an importanthistorian. Furthermore, the reprintsare accompaniedby an extensive biography(the one that appearedin Isis, 1930, 14:166-186), a complete bibliographyof his writings, and a full set of indexes, includingseparateones for proper names, subjects, technical terms, and Latin, Greek, and Arabic terms occurringin the articles. The thoroughness and utility of these reprints of Wiedemann'swritings con17 E. S. Kennedy; with colleagues and former students. StudiesI in the Islamic Exact Sciences. Edited by David King and Mary Helen Kennedy. xvi + 771 pp., illus., bibls., indexes. Beirut: Ameri-

can University of Beirut, 1983.(Availablein the U.S. from Syracuse UniversityPress.) $80.
Willy Hartner. Oriens-Occidens: Ausgewiihlte Schriften zur Wissenschafts- und Kulturgeschichte.

Volume II. Edited by Y. Maeyama.Introduction MatthiasSchramm.(Collectanea,3.2.) xli + 423 by pp., illus., figs., index. Hildesheim:Georg Olms Verlag, 1984.DM 118. David A. King. Islamic MathematicalAstronomy.(Collected Studies Series, 231.) xi + 342 pp., illus., index. London:Variorum Reprints, 1986.
David A. King. Islamic Astronomical Instruments. (Collected Studies Series, 253.) vi + 362 pp.,

illus., index. London:VariorumReprints, 1987.?36.


18 Eilhard Wiedemann. Aufsdtze zur arabischen Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Foreword and indexes by Wolfdietrich Fischer. (Collectanea, 6.) 2 vols. xxiv + 880 pp.; ix + 859 pp., index. Hildesheim: G.

Olms, 1970.
Eilhard Wiedemann. Gesammelte Schriften zur arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaftsgeschichte.

(Veroffentlichungen Institutes fur Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen des Wissenschaften,Reihe B; Nachdrucke, Band 1.) Volume I: Schriften 1876-1912. Edited by DorotheaGirke. 612 + 51 (Arabic)pp. Volume II: Schriften1912-1927. Editedby Dorothea Girkeand DieterBischoff.598 + 47
(Arabic) pp. Volume III: Schriften in Zusammenarbeit mit Fritz Hauser. Edited by Dorothea Girke

and DieterBischoff.580 + 44 (Arabic)pp., indexes. Frankfurt Main:Institutfur Geschichteder am Wissenschaftenan der JohannWolfgangGoethe-Universitat,1984. DM 135. Arabisch-Islamischen

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trast with the shortcomings of the recently issued volume of articles by Max There is no complete listing of Meyerhof's writMeyerhof, who died in 1945.19 ings, and only the shortest of biographies of this eminent ophthalmologistand historian who spent almost thirty-five years in Egypt. Even more regrettably, nearly all the reprintedarticles were taken fromjournals that can be quite easily obtained today (e.g., nearly half are from Isis), and some equally importantbut less accessible studies are not even mentioned, such as his studies of John Philoponus, of the medical-philosophicalcontroversy between Ibn Ridwan and Ibn Butlan, or of the extraction of cataracts by the eleventh-centuryCairene oculist 'Ammar, all published in Egypt or Spain. Add to that the fact that some of the studies selected are now outdatedby virtue of more recent work (such as that on Ibn Jumay' mentionedearlier;or the work of Casey Wood, apparentlyunknown to the editor, which supersedes the single article on the history of ophthalmology included in the volume), and the result is a volume of very 'limitedutility. To be fair to the editor, Penelope Johnstone, the historical production of Meyerhof, like that of Wiedemann, was so extensive that anyone required to select only eleven items is in an unenviableposition. Johnstoneobviously tried to select articles that would representthe differentfacets of his historicalinterests, and her amazingly succinct biographyshows a gracious appreciationfor Meyerhofs importance. She also supplied a general index to the names, titles, and manuscriptscited in the eleven articles. Nonetheless, it would have been of greaterservice to have provideda detailed bibliographicallisting of all his historical publications, especially since some, such as his book on the Theologus autodidactus of Ibn al-Nafis, were not published until many years after his death and are not includedin the early bibliographies to which the readeris referred.Moreover, if it was impossible to undertake a reprintingof all Meyerhofs writings,it would have greatlyenhancedthe significance of this tribute to an outstandingscholar of Islamic science and medicine had equally importantbut less accessible materialbeen chosen. The inadequacy of Studies in Medieval Arabic Medicine is in part offset by the appearancetwo years later of a four-volumeset of reprintsconcerned with ophthalmology in medieval Islam, which includes all the historical ophthalmological This excellent set, issued by the articles and monographsby Max Meyerhof.20 same publishers who reprinted Wiedemann'swritings, reproduces the German translationsof five Arabic ophthalmologicalmanualspreparedby Julius Hirschberg at the beginning of this century (Vol. I); Meyerhof's English and French translationsof three Arabic treatises (Vol. II); Hirschberg'stwo monographson the history of ophthalmologyin Islamic lands, along with seven of his articles on related topics and twenty by Meyerhof (Vol. III); and thirty studies employing Latin versions of the Arabic ophthalmologicalliterature,many of them dissertations that are quite difficult to locate (Vol. IV). These four volumes bring together all the importantearly studies on Islamic ophthalmology,except for the highly useful annotatedEnglish translationof 'All ibn 'Isa's (d. 1010)A MemorandumBook for Oculists, made by Casey A. Wood under the direction of Max
19Max Meyerhof. Studies in Medieval Arabic Medicine: Theory and Practice. Edited by Penelope

Johnstone.(CollectedStudies Series, 204.) 366 pp., index. London:Variorum Reprints, 1984.$28.


20

Fuat Sezgin (Editor). Augenheilkunde im Islam: Texte, Studien und Ubersetzungen. (Veroffentli-

chungen des Institutes fur Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften,Reihe B; Nachdrucke Abteilung Medizin, Band 3, 1-4.) Volume I: Werke von Ibn Sind, CAlIibn Cjsa, CAmmdr ibn cAla al-Mausilt, Halifa al-Halabt und Salah ad-Din. 840 pp. Volume II: Werke von Hunain ibn Ishaq und Muhammad al-Gaftqt. 910 pp. Volume III: Beitrdge von Hirschberg, Meyerhof und Prufer. 730 pp. Volume IV: Dissertationen, Augsatze und Ubersetzungen. 820 pp. Frankfurt am Main: Institut

fur Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaftenan der JohannWolfgangGoethe-Universitat, 1986. DM 165.

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Meyerhof in 1936(Chicago:NorthwesternUniv. Press), which certainlydeserves reprintingsince it is obviously unknownto many scholars workingtoday.
CATALOGUES

Cataloguesof originalsource materialsconstitute some of the most importantas well as voluminous publications in this decade. With their appearance, all the major medical collections will have been substantiallycatalogued except for the holdings in Cairo. As for the mathematicaland physical sciences, the Cairo collections have been completely dealt with, but there are other major collections still in need of analysis. Distributionin the West has been somewhat delayed and erraticfor some of the catalogues publishedin the Near East. A collection of 350 Islamic manuscriptswas assembled by Sami IbrahimHaddad, a surgeonand founderof the OrientHospital in Beirut, who died in 1957. Of these manuscripts, 125 were concerned with medicine, pharmacy, and related topics. A carefully preparedcatalogue, written in Arabic, by his son Farid Sami Haddad in collaborationwith the historianHans Hinrich Biesterfeldt, presents a complete description of each item, including the opening and final passages of each tract and indications of owners, published versions, and translations, as well as references to the standard bibliographicalsources and other copies known to the cataloguers.21 Moreover, the catalogue includes eleven appendixes giving additionalinformationsuch as dates of purchase and the historical publications of Sami Haddad;thirteen indexes that serve as guides to titles, authors, copyists, owners, and dates of copies; and thirty illustrations, which unfortunately are quite poorly reproduced.This is a well-roundedcollection of medical manuscripts, mostly in Arabic but with a few Persian items, and includes not only many of the standardmedieval medical compositions but also a few items not known to exist outside this collection, such as Palladios'scommentaryon the aphorisms of Hippocrates (currentlybeing edited by Biesterfeldt)and a treatise on anatomy by clmad al-Din Mahmuid Shiraz. of Of the 125 Haddad manuscripts so carefully catalogued by Biesterfeldt and Haddad, 95 were offered for sale at Sotheby's in London in November 1985. The sale catalogue gave only very short descriptionsof the items, along with seventeen illustrationsof folios. This lot was purchasedin its entirety by the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London, where it will supplement already-extensiveholdingsin Islamic medicalmanuscripts.It is fortunatethat the majority of Sami Haddad's collection has been maintained intact and placed where it will be well cared for and easily available to scholars. It is regrettable, however, that the remaining30 manuscripts, which include many of the rarer items, were not kept with those sold to the Wellcome Institute. Islamic medical manuscriptsin 129 librariesin Turkey are the focus of a catalogue preparedin Istanbulunderthe auspices of the Research Centrefor Islamic The History, Art, and Culture.22 catalogueencompasses nearly 1,000titles representing the work of about 550 medieval medical writers, commentators, and
21 Farid SamI Haddad; Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt. Fihris al-makhtutat al-tibbtyah al-carabtyah ft maktabat al-duktur Sdmi Ibrdhim Haddad (Catalog of the Arabic medical manuscripts in the library

of Doctor Sami IbrahimHaddad). (In Arabic.) 223 + xxxiii pp., illus., indexes. Aleppo, Syria: Machad al-Turathal-cIlmi al-cArabi,Jamicat Halab (Institutefor the History of Arabic Science at the University of Aleppo), 1984.(Paper.) 22 Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (Editor). Catalogue of Islamic Medical Manuscripts (in Arabic, Turkish by and Persian) in the Libraries of Turkey. Prepared Ramazan $e?en, Cemil Akpinar, and Cevad Izgi. (Studies and Sources on the History of Science, 1.) (In Arabic.) xxviii + 525 + v pp., indexes. Istanbul:ResearchCentrefor Islamic History, Art, and Culture,1984.$30 (paper).

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translators,as well as nearly 5,000 duplicatecopies of various titles, all of which are to be found in libraries throughoutTurkey. Approximately 80 percent of these manuscriptsare in Arabic, with the remainderin Persianand Turkish. The text of the catalogue is in Arabic and was composed on a word processor at the Research Centre in Istanbul. The clarity and accuracy of the resulting volume demonstrate the value of computer-set texts in preparingArabic catalogues. The concise entries are arrangedby author, with the title of each composition, physical descriptionof the copy, collection name, and call numbergiven for every known copy, followed by commentaries,translations,and summaries. Anonymous works are listed separatelyin alphabeticalorder by title, and extensive indexes serve as guides to authors, commentators,and titles. This volume is the first of a series of publicationsentitled "Sources and Studies on the History of Science," edited by the director general of the Research Centre, EkmeleddinIhsanoglu.The second volume is an annotatedbibliography, compiled by Ihsanoglu, of Turkishliteratureon chemistry, which surveys more than 250 works, publishedbetween 1830and 1928, that reflect the introductionof modern chemistry into Turkey.23The third and fourth volumes are to be catalogues of Turkishmanuscriptsconcerned with the naturaland physical sciences. Scholars throughoutthe world will be indebtedto the ResearchCentrefor undertaking this effort to make their vast collections of historical materials more widely known. In 1981 an importantcatalogue of the medical manuscriptspreserved in the ZahiriyahLibraryin Damascus was published.24 was preparedby the curator It of manuscriptsat the Zahiriyah,$alah Muhammad al-Khiyami,with the purpose of correctingthe omissions and errorscontainedin the earliercatalogueprepared by Sami Hamarnehin 1964and issued as PartI of the series. The first half of this new catalogue describes in detail 208 items omitted from the previous one. The entries are arrangedin alphabeticalorder by title and also give the name and dates of the author (if known), extensive opening and closing passages with the basic divisions of the treatise, the date and name of the copyist (if recorded), a general description of the manuscript'sphysical condition, and any information available on previous owners and readers as well as other manuscriptcopies. These details are supplementedby index guides to the authors, copyists, owners, place names, and the names of authoritiesmentionedin the treatises. The second half presents corrected but condensed alphabeticallistings of the 181 titles included in the catalogue by Hamarneh.The majorityof the manuscriptsin this collection are Arabic, with a few Persian and Turkish, and they include some very importantitems, such as a complete copy of the Anatomical Procedures of Galen, two copies of an otherwise unknowntract by Ibn Sina on the treatmentof eye diseases, an ophthalmologicaltreatise by Ibn al-Nafis, and an especially importantcopy of the history of physicians written in the thirteenthcentury by the Syrian physician Ibn Abi Usaybicah-the only one known to contain a biographical account of his contemporaryIbn al-Nafis. This thoroughly prepared catalogue will be of great service to historiansand is a welcome replacementfor its predecessor. In recent years the University of California at Los Angeles has acquired
23 Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.TurkKimyaEserleriBibliyografyasi. (Studiesand Sources on the History of Science, 2.) (In Turkish.)ix + 148 pp., indexes. Istanbul:ResearchCentre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture, 1985.(Paper.) 24

Salah Muhammad al-Khiyami. Fihris makht.tdt

Ddr al-Kutub al-Zdhirtyah: al-Tibb wa al-Say-

of dalah, al-juz' al-thdni(Catalogof the Manuscripts the ZahiriyahNational Library:Medicineand Pharmacy, Part II). (In Arabic.) 490 pp., indexes. Damascus: Majmac al-Lughahal-cArabiyahfi Dimashq, 1981.

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Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscriptsnumberingmore than 5,086 volumes; nearly 200 boxes of manuscriptsare yet unnumbered.These Near Eastern manuscripts are grouped into fifteen designated collections, all but two of which are housed in the Special Collections of the University Research Library;two collections composed primarilyof medical manuscriptshave recently been transferred to the historical collections of the Biomedical Library in the School of Medicine. Of the Persian medical manuscriptsmakingup one of these two collections (Collection 1117), all but twenty were admirably described by Lutz in Richter-Bernburg a cataloguepublishedin 1978.The Arabic medical items that make up Collection 1062 are the subject of a recent catalogue by A. Z. Iskandar,25who had earlier catalogued a substantial portion of the Arabic medical manuscripts at the Wellcome Institute in London. It should be noted that the designation employed by the library for this collection-that is, Near Eastern Collection 1062-is never mentioned by Iskandar.In fact, the only designation he used for the manuscriptsis "Ar.," as if they were the only Arabic manuscripts owned by the university. Before preparingthis handlist Iskandar selected 122 volumes from the Near Eastern holdings and designatedthem a separate collection. In the process the record of the immediate provenance of the items was lost. Furthermore,several volumes apparentlyproved, on closer inspection, to have been neither medical nor scientific, for they are not includedin the handlist, though they remain in the collection. The catalogue contains an unusual introductionin which Iskandardescribes the catalogue that he would have put together, includingopening and concluding passages and references to other copies, had not the cost of printingbeen prohibitive. As it stands, the handlist, which is the result of four years' work between 1969 and 1973, consists of a short description of each of the 262 treatises or referfragments, presented alphabeticallyby title, with standardbibliographical ences. This is supplementedby indexes of authors, place names, copyists, and previous owners (except for the owner immediatelybefore UCLA), and thirty illustrationsof selected folios from the manuscripts.A useful feature is a list in the introductionof the names of physicians who have made some type of dated entry in a manuscript.The introductionalso draws attention to some of the outstandingitems contained in this collection, such as the copy of Galen's Anatomical Procedures and the manuscriptof Ibn al-Nafis's commentaryon the anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine, which was copied forty-six years before Ibn al-Nafis's death. A discussion of the limitationsof this catalogue can be found in the review by Lawrence Conrad in Medical History (1986, 30:484-486). It should be added, however, that one of the most distressingfeatures is the implicationin the titleA Descriptive List of Arabic Manuscripts on Medicine and Science-that this

collection of 122 volumes exhausts the Arabic medical and scientificmanuscripts at UCLA. This is not the case. Throughoutthe other Near Eastern collections at UCLA are numerousvolumes on astronomy, mathematics,and optics, and even some on medicine and allied topics, in additionto many on the so-called pseudosciences of alchemy, astrology, divination, magic, amulets, and talismans. A guide to many of these other scientific items at UCLA can be found in a voluminous checklist, publishedin Persian in 1983, by Muhammad TaqIDanishpazhih.26 This short-entrycatalogue surveys 3,619 Arabic, Persian, and Turkish
25 A. Z. Iskandar. A Descriptive List of Arabic Manuscripts on Medicine and Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. xiv + 119 + xxx pp., illus., indexes. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984. 26 Muhammad Taqi Danishpazhuh; Ismacil Hakimi. Nuskhah-hdi-i khatti. (Intisharat-i Danishgah-i

Tihran, 1039/11/12.)(In Persian.) 786 + ccccxii pp., illus., indexes. Tehran: Danishgah-iTihran, 1983.

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manuscripts in nine of the Near Eastern collections at UCLA, not including Over 5,000 titles of treatises those catalogued by Iskandaror Richter-Bernburg. are entered in the checklist, supplementedby 412 pages of photographsof folios from selected volumes. Unfortunately,the catalogue has no authorindex, which greatly diminishes its usefulness, and there are occasional errors. For example, Collection 955 is referred to as Collection 995, which may cause difficulty for potential readersof the manuscripts.It nonetheless serves as a useful and important preliminaryguide to nearly two thirds of the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscriptsat UCLA, and a surprisingportion of these manuscriptsdeal with some aspect of science or medicine. The largest single collection acquiredby UCLA was assembled by a physician in Isfahan named Caro Owen Minasian. Two thirds of Minasian's collection, or 1,505 volumes, came to UCLA, with the remaindernow at Wadham College, also contains a University of Oxford. The checklist preparedby Danishpazhuih checklist of the items now at WadhamCollege, of which a few are medical or scientific and most are in Persian. The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London houses the largest Persian medical manuscriptcollection in the Western world; it has recently published an extensive catalogue of the 617 Persian manuscripts in its possession.27The vast majorityof these manuscriptsare concerned with medicine, but there are also items on other sciences such as astronomy, mathematics, and geomancy and on nonscientific topics such as music, literature, and lexicography. The dates of composition of the treatises range from the eleventh through the eighteenth centuries, though no extant copies are as early as the eleventh century. The cataloguer, Fateme Keshavarz, describes each treatise in considerable detail before giving specific informationregardingthe copies in the Wellcome collection. Medieval and early modern Persian medical literaturehas been neglected by recent historians;this catalogue should surely encourage historians to delve into this abundanceof riches. The Egyptian National Library in Cairo is one of the largest repositories of Islamic manuscripts.Recent years have seen the extensive examinationand cataloguing by David A. King of the astronomical, mathematical,mechanical, and optical Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscriptsamong its holdings. In 1981 King published in Arabic, with a short English preface, the first volume of a projected two-partcatalogue. The second volume, also in Arabic, did not appear until the end of 1986, and consequently the complete catalogue has only recently become available.28 Here again, as with Iskandar'shandlist, the title-A Catalogue of the Scientific Manuscripts in the Egyptian National Library-is somewhat misleading, for

the catalogue does not include any of the biological sciences or alchemy, chemistry, medicine, pharmacy,botany, animalhusbandry,or physiognomy. As for the legion of treatises on magic squares and various forms of numericaldivination preserved in Cairo, only a very few of the items in the huruf(divinatory)collection of the National Library are catalogued here, while the vast holdings on
27 Fateme Keshavarz. A Descriptive and Analytical Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. 705 pp., illus., indexes. London: Well-

come Institutefor the History of Medicine, 1986.?35, $55.


28

David A. King. A Catalogue of the Scientific Manuscripts in the Egyptian National Library.

in with the AmericanResearch Centerin Cairo:GeneralEgyptianBook Organization, collaboration


Egypt and the Smithsonian Institution. Part I: A Critical Handlist of the Scientific Collections: In-

dexes of Copyistsand Owners.(AmericanResearchCenterin Egypt, Catalog3.) (In Arabic.)xvii +


781 + xviii pp., indexes. 1981. $40 (paper.). Part II: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Scientific Collections Arranged Chronologically According to Subject Matter (Arabic-Persian-Turkish): Indexes of Titles and Authors. (In Arabic.) viii + 1299 + viii pp., indexes. 1986. (Paper.)

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divinationand astrology in the Mustafa Fadil hurufcollection are scarcely mentioned. However, even grantedthat "scientific"is here taken to mean only the mathematical and physical sciences (excludingchemistry and alchemy), the numberof items surveyed is most impressive. The first volume of the catalogue contains a handlist of over 2,500 volumes, presented in shelf order by collection, each described in short entries supplying titles of individual treatises, authors (when known), and length and dimensions of the copy, as well as date, copyists, and previous owners (if recorded). The provenance-in the sense of the region in which the copy was made-is indicated througha series of symbols designating geographicalregions. All this is supplementedby indexes of copyists, owners, and readers, in additionto a chronologicallist of the dated copies and a list of the manuscriptsavailable on microfilmthroughthe League of Arab States Institute of Arabic Manuscripts. The second volume analyzes the same Arabic manuscriptsby groupingthem into seven subject categories:general astronomy,ephemeridesand charts, astronomical timekeeping, writings on astronomical instruments, astrology, mathematics, and physics. Withineach of these headings, the manuscriptsare grouped into more specific topics and then described in roughly chronologicalorder. The Persian and Turkishmanuscriptsare analyzed in the same formatbut in separate sections prepared by Cornell Fleischer, while a few items are given only the shortest of entries since they concern medicine, divination, or other topics outside the area designated as "scientific." The entry in this second volume for each treatise consists of its opening and closing paragraphs(transcribedby a number of assistants under King's direction), a table of contents, and informationon the length of the manuscript,the shelf number, and multiple copies to be found in the Cairo collections-all very useful informationto historians. The indexes of authors and titles in this second volume are keyed only to the subject and chronology numbers assigned the works there, rather than to the shelf numbers used in the first volume. As a result, a user who is interested in a particularauthor or title must find the full entry in Volume II before looking for the correspondingentry in Volume I. Since it seems that all the manuscriptslisted by shelf order in Volume I are presented in Volume II in a more accessible manner and in greater detail, the question naturallyarises as to why the first volume was required.It does in fact contain a modest amount of informationthat is not repeated, namely, the geographical origins of the volumes, their dimensions, copyists and owners, and short entries describingeleven astronomicalinstrumentsowned by the Egyptian National Library, all quadrants. The inclusion of entry numbers from earlier catalogues, especially for those items recordedin the 1888-1890catalogue, would have been of considerable value, for earlier historians often referred to Cairo manuscriptsonly by these early catalogue numbersand not by the collection and shelf numbersactually used by the library. In a further attempt to make this mass of resources even more accessible to potential readers, King publishedin 1986an English-language digest of the same A manuscripts.29 yet-differentarrangementof the materialwas undertaken,and entries were supplemented with references to the standard modern biobibliographical sources and published studies. The resulting volume could be a very useful guide, except that the authors are not arrangedalphabeticallyand there
29

David A. King. A Survey of the Scientific Manuscripts in the Egyptian National Library. (Ameri-

can Research Centerin Egypt, Catalog5.) xiv + 331 pp., illus. WinonaLake, Indiana:Eisenbrauns for the AmericanResearchCenterin Egypt, 1986. $39.50(paper);$54.50(cloth).

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are no indexes to authors, titles, or subjects;nor is there a key to match the entry numbersused in the second volume of the Arabic catalogue with the new codes used for the author entries in this English volume. Instead, the authors (as well as anonymous tracts) are groupedfirst by region (designatedby letter) and then chronologically (by number). The criterionfor determiningwhat region or time period to assign a writer or anonymous treatise to is neither stated nor always evident. Because of the lack of indexes, users must already know a fair amount about the object of their search or be willing to scan every page. One thirdof the volume consists of 109 pages of photographedfolios from particularlyimportant manuscripts,accompaniedby extensive captions. Through these three large volumes-each surveying the same 2,500 manuscripts but analyzing them from different perspectives-King has provided scholars with detailed informationregardingthe largest single collection of medieval Islamic astronomical and mathematicalmanuscriptsin the world. He has brought many importantitems, previously unknownor overlooked, to the attention of historians. To give but one example, the treatise on astronomicalinstruments by the Yemeni sultan al-Ashraf(d. 1296)contains the earliest reference to a magneticcompass in medievalastronomicalliterature,thoughal-Ashrafhimself did not claim the invention. Appendedto this same treatise are comments by the sultan's teachers on six astrolabes that al-Ashrafmade, one of which is now at the MetropolitanMuseumof Art in New York (althoughits authenticityhad been questioned prior to the publicationof these catalogues). Medieval astronomers in Yemen have been a particularconcern of David King's, and this is evident in another guide to manuscriptsources he recently
published, Mathematical Astronomy in Medieval Yemen.30This volume surveys

over one hundred Yemeni astronomical manuscripts preserved in libraries in Europe and the Near East. A historical survey of Yemeni astronomy from the tenth century to the early twentieth century is followed by a list of more than fifty Yemeni astronomersand their writings;this also includes writers on arithmetic, surveying, and problems involved in determininginheritance. Seven indexes give access to the materialcatalogued. This useful volume on Yemeni sources, as well as the two-volume Arabic catalogue of manuscriptsat the Egyptian National Library published in Egypt and the English-languagecompanion guide to the Cairo collection, are all being distributed in the United States by Eisenbrauns(P.O. Box 275, Winona Lake,
Indiana 46590).
INSTITUTIONAL ACTIVITIES

There could scarcely be a more encouragingomen for the future understanding and appreciation of medieval Islamic science and medicine than the establishment of the Institut fur Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften of the JohannWolfgangGoethe Universitatin Frankfurt Main. Among the many am activities it has launched is a new journal devoted to the history of Islamic
science, Zeitschrift fur Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften,

under the editorshipof Fuat Sezgin. "Science" is broadlydefinedin this journal, as it was in medieval Islam, so as to include not only astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, but also literarycriticism, grammar,and jurisprudence.Book reviews and editions of short Arabic texts also make up part of the journal, which
30

David A. King. Mathematical Astronomy in Medieval Yemen: A Biobibliographical Survey.

(AmericanResearch Center in Egypt, Catalog4.) ix + 98 pp., illus., bibl., indexes. Malibu, Calif.: Undena Publications,1983. $17 (paper).

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ISLAMICSCIENCEREVIEWS-ISIS, 79: 2: 287 (1988)

A~~~~~~~~~ ~Ottoman

. '

Cannon from an anonymous

treatise on warfare;
Egyptian National Library

MNT3, folio 61. From David


King, A Survey of Scientific Manuscripts in theEgyptian

National Library.

thus provides a forumfor the publicationof materialthat, because of the difficulties inherentin printingArabic script, is often not easily incorporatedinto history of science serial publications. The result is a much-neededjournal meeting the highest standards of modem scholarship, printed clearly and accurately on the highest quality paper. The Frankfurtinstitute also started a series of reprints of older works in the field in 1984, beginningwith the excellent three-volumeset of studies by Wiedemann mentioned earlier. Since then, in additionto the four-volumeset on medieval Islamic ophthalmology also discussed above, there have been reprints of majorstudies in the history of astronomyby Jacob Golius, Jean-JacquesSedillot, Louis-Amelie Sedillot, and H. C. F. C. Schjellerup;importantmonographson Islamic geographyby FerdinandWustenfeld,Joseph-ToussaintReinaud, Gabriel Ferrand, MaximilianStreck, G. S. A. Ranking, and R. F. Azoo; studies in Islamic mathematicsby Franz Woepcke and Heinrich Suter; philosophicalstudies by Ernest Renan and Max Horten; books on general Islamic history by Ferdinand Wustenfeldand BernardCarrade Vaux; translationsby Pieter de Koningof Arabic anatomicaland surgicalchapters from medical encyclopedias; and investigations into the history of Oriental music by Henry George Farmer. The reprintingof these earlierhistoricalstudies at reasonableprices is a great service to the field, particularlyto younger scholars who need to develop their librariesor who are located far from majorreference librariesthat have the original, sometimes ratherrare, editions. The Institute for the History of Arabic-IslamicScience also began in 1984 an

ISLAMICSCIENCEREVIEWS-ISIS, 79: 2: 287 (1988)

265

importantproject of producingfacsimile editions of some of the most significant and hitherto unpublished manuscriptson scientific topics. A manuscriptis selected-frequently a unique copy in a rather inaccessible library-and reproduced photographically.Thirty-one such volumes have so far been issued, with nine more in preparation,and they include such items as the complete medical encyclopedia by the tenth-centurySpanishphysician al-Zahrawl,known in Latin as Albucasis; the majorwriting on astrology by Abfi Macshar; and a thirteenthcentury tract on proportion in musical composition. The volumes are not for general sale through bookdealers, but are printed in limited editions of five hundred copies each, available at cost to specialists, libraries, and institutions with sections on Islamic studies. Other institutions are also supportingthe spread of Islamic studies. Another projected series of facsimile copies of manuscriptsis mentionedby David King in the introductionto his catalogue of manuscriptsin Cairo. He stated that a series of volumes reproducingby photo-offset some of the more significantmathematical and astronomicalmanuscriptsfrom the collection in Cairowill be undertaken by the Egyptian National Libraryin collaborationwith the American Research Center in Egypt. It is importantthat this facsimile series does in fact materialize, for relatively easy access to the basic resources is fundamentallyimportantto future historians, as the Frankfurtinstitute clearly realized when it undertookits facsimile series. Just as the Frankfurtinstitute's new journal will be an importantforum for
future work, so was the Journal for the History of Arabic Science issued by the

Institute for the History of Arabic Science in Aleppo, Syria, which unfortunately has not appearedsince 1983. It is hoped that the institute in Aleppo will be able to keep publishing its journal and edited texts, as well as sponsoring symposiums, as it did in the 1970s in particular.In Istanbul the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture has not only begun a series of publications concerned with the history of Islamic science but has also sponsored some recent symposiums, as have also the League of Arab States Office and the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London. It is importantthat such symposiums continue, for they provide necessary points of contact for scholars from all over the world.
A LOOK AHEAD

There are today a considerable number of individual scholars working on the history of Islamic science and medicine, and the numberappears to be increasing. Importantand necessary work will continue in editing, translating,and interpretingtexts, and there are still majorproblemsin the cross-culturalmigration of ideas that deserve full and serious study. In the near future, however, there will probablybe more interpretativestudies employing some of the methods and approaches developed in other historical disciplines over the past twenty years. The investigations of scholars such as A. I. Sabra at Harvardand Michael Dols at Oxfordgive every promise of creatingnew perspectives on the developmentof medieval Islamic science and medicine. Importantcollaborative works are due to appear early in the next decade. A composite volume on the history of Islamic science and medicine, under the editorship of Roshdi Rashed and Regis Morelon of the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifiquein Paris, to be published in English, French, and Arabic versions, is expected to supply a fresh overview and some updated interpretations of medieval Islamic science. The format is to be accessible to nonspecialists. A comprehensive repertoire of signed Islamic astronomical instruments,

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prepared by the late Alain Brieux and Francis R. Maddison of Oxford, is also scheduled to appear soon. The next decade should see a growing awareness and application of other historical methodologies and the somewhat belated joining with contemporary historians of other areas, who have for some time displayed more interest in the broader backgroundof scientific development. In addition, the effects should soon be felt of those calls, by Sabraamong others, to understandIslamic science on its own terms rather than as a subsidiaryof ancient Western science. With such currents stirring,with the increased availabilityof resources, and with widening opportunitiesto publish and exchange ideas, the study of the history of Islamic science and medicine appearsto be maturingand will result, one hopes, in works of significanceto a wider audience of historians.

Diophante. Les arithmetiques. Edited and critical edition of the same fragment, also translated by Roshdi Rashed. Volume III: underreview, as Volumes III and IV of the Book IV. ccvi + 162 pp., illus., bibl. Vol- complete Arithmetica (the other volumes ume IV: Books V- VII. cxxxiv + 197 pp., being devoted to the Greek part)in the eleapp., index. (Collection des Universites de gant French Bude series, accompaniedby a France.) Paris: Societe d'Edition "Les French translation on facing pages, a detailed historical introduction,a mathematiBelles Lettres," 1984. Fr 250 (cloth). cal commentary,criticalhistoricaland philDiophantus. Books IV to VII of Dioological notes, and an index of Arabic phantus' Arithmetica in the Arabic Transterms that is in fact a trilingual glossary lation Attributed to Qustd ibn Luiqd. Edited comprisingArabic, French, and Greek. and translatedby JacquesSesiano.(Sources One can think of dozens of books dealing in the History of Mathematicsand Physi- with science in the classical period of cal Sciences, 3.) xii + 502 pp., app., which we do not have a decent edition in bibl., index. New York/Heidelberg/Berlin: any language. In the case of this surviving SpringerVerlag, 1982. fragment,extant in a unique manuscriptin We have known about the existence of a the Meshhed Library, Iran, we are forfragmentof the Arabic translationof Dio- tunate indeed to have not one edition phantus's Arithmetica (comprising books but two. These editions are significantfor IV-VII of the originalGreek)for more than the contrast between the methodologies, a decade now, thanks to two articles presuppositions, and approaches of two by Roshdi Rashed ("Les travaux perdus individuals coming from completely difde Diophante," Revue d'Histoire des ferent perspectives and backgrounds and Sciences, 1974, 27:97-122; 1975, 28:3-30) equippedwith differenttrainingand experithat presented the fragment's contents in ence. A careful considerationof both volgreat detail. Rashed later published a pre- umes reveals the effects such differences liminary edition of the same fragment can have on what one considers necessary (Cairo, al-Hay'ah al-Misriyyahal-cammah in establishingan authoritativecritical edili-l-kitab, 1975),which includeda historical tion of a scientific text. introduction and a detailed mathematical The differences focus primarily on the commentary(all in Arabic). Several studies treatmentof Qusta as translator.The mathhave since appearedthat were inspiredby ematics of Diophantus's Arithmetica, the his discovery and new interest in Dio- relationshipof the Arabictranslationto the phantus's Arithmetica. More recently, extant Greek text, and the general status Jacques Sesiano has completed an English of Diophantine studies were more or less translationof the fragment,here under re- established by Rashed in his earlier publiview, which he combines with an edition of cations, and in this work he restates them the Arabic text, a historicalintroduction,a with much greater detail. Once again he mathematicalcommentary, and an Arabic shows that examiningthe conditions of the index that is really a glossary of terms. Fi- translation of Qusta ibn Luiqa's work is nally, Rashed has now published a new critical to the treatmentand understanding

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