Abū 'l-Ḥasan al-Muḫtār Yuwānnīs ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdūn ibn Saʿdūn ibn Buṭlān ( ; – 8 Šauwāl 458 AH or 2 September 1066), commonly known as Ibn Buṭlān ( ), was an Arab physician and Nestorian Christian theologian.
Born in Baghdad, the erstwhile capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate, he travelled throughout Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Anatolia, during which time he practiced medicine, studied, wrote, and engaged in intellectual debates—most famously the Battle of the Physicians with the Egyptian polymath Ibn Riḍwān. In 1054, he was in Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, where he witnessed first-hand the East–West Schism among Christendom, contributing a work to the discussions surrounding it for Michael I Cerularius, who was serving as the Patriarch of Constantinople. After his time in Constantinople, Ibn Buṭlān remained in the Byzantine Empire and eventually became a monk for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch amidst the end of the Macedonian Renaissance.
He is most renowned for his work Taqwīm aṣ-Ṣiḥḥa ( , ), a handbook on dietetics and hygiene. It was named for its intricate tables, similar to those found within a (, ), a type of astrological almanac. He was the first person to use these tables in a non-astrological work, creating a new scientific writing format that may be seen as the main influence for works like by the Arab physician Ibn Ǧazla and by the Kurdish geographer and historian Abū 'l-Fidāʾ. Translations of Taqwīm aṣ-Ṣiḥḥa into Latin are preserved in many manuscripts from the early modern period, and are thought to illustrate the relationship between medieval Europe and the Arab world in the field of medicine. Despite increased European contact with Egypt and Syria through the Crusades and trade into the 16th century, there are no Latin translations of Arabic medical texts after Ibn Buṭlān's era.
Although he lived during a period when non-Muslims—the so-called People of the Pact, who were originally Jews, Christians, and Sabians—dominated the medical profession in the Arab world, Ibn Buṭlān is noteworthy for being one of only a few non-Muslim physicians from the region about whom enough is known to paint a detailed biography. Documents like the Cairo Geniza, a collection of Jewish manuscript fragments, provide scientific records about the medical practices of such physicians, but lack reliable information outside of that to create detailed biographies about them and to describe their perception and role within society, thus proving Ibn Buṭlān as an important exception.
Education
Ibn Buṭlān was the favourite student of ibn al-Ṭayyib, a Church of the East leader, priest, and polymath, at al-ʿAḍudī Hospital. He taught him about philosophy and medicine. He instructed him in the works of Galen, Aristotle, and Hippocrates – additionally in those of Porphyry, Themistius, Pedanius Dioscorides, and more contemporary Arab physicians like ibn al-Khammār, Ibn Zurʿa, and Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. He also was educated about practical medical procedures in line with a new experimentation-based medical learning approach proposed by Persian physician Abu Bakr al-Razi. Ibn Buṭlān studied in the al-Karḫ district of Baghdad, in which many Christians lived and also received an ecclesial education from his teacher, who is considered the most important exegete of Christian Arabic literature. He became a priest, taking up the name upon his ordination. It is claimed by al-Qifṭī and by Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa that he also was a student of Abū 'l-Ḥasan al-Ḥarrānī, a Sabian physician and translator. Schacht and Meyerhof however find this claim doubtful as they argue he had been deceased prior to Ibn Buṭlān's birth, though in his own Essay on Hot and Cold Remedies Ibn Buṭlān states to have been in the presence of al-Ḥarrānī in Baghdad.
Schacht and Meyerhof, as well as Conrad, claim he knew Greek based on his Christian upbringing. However Graf proves in his translation of the Essay on the Holy Eucharist that he did not know Greek, as Ibn Buṭlān states so himself. However Ibn aṭ-Ṭaiyib taught him about the writers of Greek literary classics, such as Homer. Schacht and Meyerhof, as well as Conrad, also claim that he knew Syriac based on his upbringing, while the only surviving texts of his are written in Arabic, he did address Syriac medical learning and Syriac places of learning in the Compendium for the Monasteries and the Monks. It should also be noted that a major difference between him and his teacher's generation of Christian physicians in Baghdad – in many ways even between him and his own generation – is his turn away from Syriac literature to embracing Arabic literature. He showed great interest in Arabic poetry and pursued an education therein. He himself became a teacher of medicine and philosophy before leaving Baghdad in the beginning of Ramaḍān 440 AH/January 1049 AD.
Travels His travels began with a 10-month-long journey to al-Fusṭāṭ, an hour's walk south from the newly established Fatimid capital of Cairo. According to Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa he travelled to meet Ibn Riḍwān, a prominent medical writer and chief physician of the Fatimid caliph al-Mustanṣir bi-'llāh. Schacht and Meyerhof suggest that instead he sought employment at the court of said caliph, who held high opinions of non-Muslim physicians. According to Conrad Ibn Buṭlān's comments about the young physician's motivations to move away from Baghdad in The Physicians' Banquet, are to be understood quasi-autobiographically. Meaning that high costs of living in his hometown caused him to want to live in a more affordable city. In addition to this, there appears to have been a lack of professional opportunities in Baghdad for him.
He travelled via the Nahr ʿĪsā Canal to al-Anbar and from there to ar-Raḥba during the first 19 days of his travels. He describes ar-Raḥba as a quaint town offering a grand variety of fruits, for example 19 different kinds of grapes alone. From there it took him four days to travel to ar-Reṣafa. There he visited its castle, which was used as a caravanserai. He describes it as being very large in size, yet smaller than the Caliph's palace in Baghdad. He described the outsides of the basilica located within the castle as being covered in golden mosaics, the basilica as having been built on a cistern in the ground as large as the above ground building itself. He writes about the inhabitants of the castle, who were Christian bedouins earning their keep by guarding caravans and trading goods. Ibn Buṭlān comments about this arrangement that these beduins are "both beggars and robbers at once". He claims the basilica to have been founded by Constantine I and once restored and inhabited by Hišām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.
Ibn Buṭlān's journey from ar-Reṣafa to Aleppo took four days. He remained in Aleppo for a longer period of time. His departure from Aleppo to travel to Antioch had him visit the Byzantine village of ʿImm. After visiting Antioch he travelled to Laodicea from there he proceeded to Damascus, then Jaffa, and finally arrived in al-Fusṭāṭ in Ǧumādā II 441 AH/November 1049 AD.
Aleppo
While in Aleppo, which he reached after 27 days, he gained the graces of Muʿizz ad-Daula Ṯimāl ibn Ṣāliḥ, the emir of the city, and set up a medical practice there.
The impression he left in northern Syria was so great that he became a notable figure in the local oral canon, three of these stories were recorded by Usāma ibn Munqiḏ in his Kitab al-Iʿtibār. In these stories, ibn Buṭlān is a medical sage operating out of a shop and has a son and students; he cures a man who had lost the ability to speak with a raṭl (in Aleppo during this time a 3/4th litre) of vinegar, which is claimed to kill a man under normal circumstances by the ibn Buṭlān of the narrative. In the second story, he explains that Usāma's grandfather, who is presumed to suffer from leprosy, is not ill, but simply suffers from skin irritations caused by adolescence, which will disappear upon him reaching adulthood. He warns of greedy medical quacks offering to cure him. In the third story, a woman who wears many veils because she persistently feels too hot is cured using camphor.
What is remarkable about these stories is that they appear to be fictional except for the personal anecdote from Usāma's own family. Ibn Buṭlān left Baghdad destitute and most certainly would not have travelled with dependants, and he was not long enough in Aleppo to be born a son there. Medicine at that time would not have been practiced out of a shop () but the physician's home. A raṭl of vinegar is not deadly and the anatomy in the stories is based on medical misconceptions which ibn Buṭlān did not hold. Hence his son and students are inventions to fit the motif of the medical sage curing difficult cases with superior medical knowledge, which in all likelihood means that his kunya (lit. "father of al-Ḥasan) does not refer to a real son of his.
This is also backed up by ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, who quotes him lamenting having to die without any offspring or ever having taken a wife with a line from one of Ibn Buṭlān's poems: +When I should die and go to my grave, No one will mourn or my vigil keep,
Save my medical comrades and books:
All of these will be left to weep
Another such legend is told by Abu Dharr al-Harawi. In his account, he relays that ibn Buṭlān is said to have founded the hospital in Aleppo. To determine the best location, he hung up meat to check for air quality; where meat decayed the slowest and was the least discoloured. He begins his account with the cautionary phrase "qīla" (). This speaks to his skills in verifying oral tradition, as he does not use this phrase in the previous account in which he tells of ibn Buṭlān founding the hospital in Antioch. This legend is relevant in so far as it is a variation of another medical sage-type legend told about al-Razī and al-ʿAḍudī Hospital, describing the same method, further associating ibn Buṭlān with the motif.
Ibn Buṭlān approached the amir, , who had seized the city shortly before Ibn Buṭlān's arrival, to be entrusted with the regulation of Christian worship in Aleppo. This request was granted. Klein-Franke elucidates that Ibn Buṭlān as a student of ibn al-Ṭayyib was likely influenced by his work Law of Christianity () a Church of the East treatise on jurisprudential and administrative matters containing an extensive collection of canon law to try and apply the laws and principles identified by his teacher in this community, which included extensive deliberations over marital and inheritance law.
While Ibn Buṭlān himself was, at that time, a member of the Church of the East, the Christian community in Aleppo consisted largely of Syriac Orthodox Armenians. In his narration. al-Qifṭī simply states, "and he began to enforce religious regulations according to their principles and provisions"; this both implies that he began to change things and that ibn Buṭlān's Eastern faith and that of a Monophysite community adhere to the same beliefs, which was not the case since the Council of Chalcedon. Ibn Buṭlān would go on to condemn Monophysite beliefs in his work The Physicians' Banquet, a possible reason for the Aleppine Armenian community's staunch dislike for him long after his stay.
Likely due to these differences, conflict ensued, which culminated in a public dispute between ibn Buṭlān and (), a physician and secretary. The two met each other and struck a conversation which turned onto the subject of dialectics. Ibn Šarāra possessed no knowledge of this subject, while ibn Buṭlān was very well educated therein. This led to ibn Šarāra being publicly humiliated. He consequently began to vilify ibn Buṭlān and instigated further agitation against him in the already oppositional Aleppine Christian community. This caused ibn Buṭlān to leave Aleppo early. It is likely for this reason that al-Qifṭī reports "and he did not find anything pleasant to say about [Aleppo] and left".