Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari


Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari , was a Persian Muslim scholar, physician and psychologist, who produced one of the first encyclopedia of medicine entitled Firdous al-Hikmah. Ali ibn Sahl spoke Syriac and Greek, the two sources of the medical tradition of Antiquity which had been lost by medieval Europe, and transcribed in meticulous calligraphy. His famous student Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi has darkened his fame. He wrote the first encyclopedic work on medicine. He lived for over 70 years and interacted with important figures of the time, such as Muslim caliphs, governors, and eminent scholars. Because of his family's religious history, as well as his religious work, al-Tabarī was one of the most controversial scholars. He first discovered that the pulmonary tuberculosis was contagious.

Life

Ali came from a Persian or Syriac family of Tabaristan Amol. Hossein Nasr states that he was a convert to Islam from Zoroastrianism, however Sami K. Hamarneh and Franz Rosenthal state he was a convert from Christianity. His father Sahl ibn Bishr was a state official, highly educated and well respected member of the Syriac community.
Rabbān received his educational bases in the medical field, natural sciences, calligraphy, mathematics, philosophy and literature from his father Sahl.
The Abbassid caliph al-Mu'tasim took him into the service of the court, which he continued under al-Mutawakkil. Ali ibn Sahl was fluent in Syriac and Greek, the two sources for the medical tradition of antiquity, and versed in fine calligraphy.

His works

Although few of them are still found today, Al-Tabarī left 12 books to mankind. Most of them were about medicine. In addition to medicine, he was known as a scholar of philosophy, mathematics and astronomy.
  1. His Firdous al-Hikmah, which he wrote in Arabic called also Al-Kunnash was a system of medicine in seven parts. He also translated it into Syriac, to give it wider usefulness. The information in Firdous al-Hikmah has never entered common circulation in the West because it was not edited until the 20th century, when Mohammed Zubair Siddiqui assembled an edition using the five surviving partial manuscripts. There is still no English translation. A German translation by Alfred Siggel of the chapters on Indian medicine was published in 1951.
  2. Tuhfat al-Muluk
  3. a work on the proper use of food, drink, and medicines.
  4. Hafzh al-Sihhah, following Greek and Indian authorities.
  5. Kitab al-Ruqa
  6. Kitab fi al-hijamah
  7. Kitab fi Tartib al-'Ardhiyah

    ''Firdous al-Hikmah''

Firdous al-Hikmah is one of the oldest encyclopedias of Islamic medicine, based on Syriac translations of Greek and Indian sources.It is divided into 7 sections and 30 parts, with 360 chapters in total.