Oliver Kahl - Böcker

This book centres around a critical edition and annotated English translation of an Arabic medical writing: On the Errors of the Physicians in Damascus, composed by the Jewish philosopher, Jacob ben Isaac (fl. AD 1202). The edition and translation are framed by a bio-bibliographical sketch of the author, a source-critical study of the text, a detailed description of the extant manuscripts, and various indices which make the material accessible from different angles. Jacob's treatise is significant in several ways: first, as an example for the lasting influence of the Greek medico-philosophical tradition, especially Galenism, on medieval Arabic and Jewish scholarship; second, as an authentic witness to the theoretical and practical state of Arabic medicine in the High Middle Ages; third, it illustrates the Jewish contribution to medieval Islamic science; and fourth, it contains valuable information relating to socio-cultural history in general.

The Kitāb Taḥrīm dafn al-aḥyāʾ, the Book on the Prohibition to Bury the Living, written by the Nestorian physician ʿUbaidallāh Ibn Buḫtīšūʿ (d. c. 1060 CE), deals with the causes, signs and treatments of apparent death. Based on a short pseudo-Galenic treatise, whose Greek original is lost, ʿUbaidallāh’s Arabic commentary is a comprehensive and in many ways unique piece of scientific writing that moreover promotes a psychological understanding of physical illness. Oliver Kahl’s present book offers a critical Arabic edition with annotated English translation of ʿUbaidallāh’s work on apparent death, framed by a detailed introductory study and extensive glossaries covering all relevant terms; for comparative purposes, the Arabic and Hebrew recensions of the lost Greek prototype are presented in an appendix.

ʿAlī ibn Sahl Rabban aṭ-Ṭabarī's Indian Books, completed in the year 850 CE as an appendix to his medico-philosophical chef-d'œuvre "Paradise of Wisdom", belong to the most remarkable texts in Arabic scientific literature. The Indian Books offer a unique, interpretative summary of the main tenets of Ayurvedic medicine, as understood by Arabic-speaking scholars on the basis of now lost translations from Sanskrit. The present book centres around a critical edition and annotated translation of this crucial text, framed by a detailed introduction and extensive glossaries of terms. Ṭabarī's learned exposé of Ayurveda also throws a more nuanced light on the allegedly uncontested supremacy of Greek humoralism in 9th-century Arabic medicine.

Oliver Kahl and Henrietta Sharp Cockrell present a facsimile edition of a newly discovered medieval medical text attributed to the famous physician Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī (Rhazes, d. 925 CE). This unique Arabic manuscript comprises a work in the health regimen genre titled “Book of the Crown” (Kitāb al-Iklīl). Copied in 1220 CE and bound parallel to the text (flip-bound), it is highly unusual, both in terms of physical appearance and topical choices. The edition is accompanied by an annotated English translation en regard, a detailed introduction including a codicological study, and bilingual indices.