Simon Swain

Emilie Savage-Smith

Geert Jan van Gelder

A Literary History of Medicine by the Syrian physician Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah (d. 1270) is the earliest comprehensive history of medicine. It contains biographies of over 432 physicians, ranging from the ancient Greeks to the author’s contemporaries, describing their training and practice, often as court physicians, and listing their medical works; all this interlaced with poems and anecdotes. These volumes present the first complete and annotated translation along with a new edition of the Arabic text showing the stages in which the author composed the work. Introductory essays provide important background. The reader will find on these pages an Islamic society that worked closely with Christians and Jews, deeply committed to advancing knowledge and applying it to health and wellbeing.

The ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ of Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah. Volume 3-1: Annotated English Translation

A Literary History of Medicine

Magic and divination in early Islam encompassed a wide range of practices, including belief in jinn, warding off the evil eye, the production of amulets and other magical equipment, conjuring, wonder-working, dream interpretation, predicting the weather, casting lots, astrology, and physiognomy. The ten studies here are concerned with the pre-Islamic antecedents of such practices, and with the theory of magic in healing, the nature and use of amulets and their decipherment, the arts of astrometeorology and geomancy, the refutation of astrology, and the role of the astrologer in society. Some of the studies are highly illustrated, some long out of print, some revised or composed for this volume, and one translated into English for the first time. These fundamental investigations, together with the introductory bibliographic essay, are intended as a guide to the concepts, terminology, and basic scholarly literature of an important, but often overlooked, aspect of classical Islamic culture.

Magic and Divination in Early Islam

Tim Stanley

Francis Maddison

Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art

Ralph H. Pinder-Wilson

The Nasser D. Khalili Collection contains an enormous number of historically important objects relating to the fields of Islamic science in astrology, astronomy, medicine, and magic. This volume brings all these subjects together, and provides fascinating insight into the traditions and innovations of scholars and scientists in Islamic cultures. An intriguing and beautiful array of instruments and artefacts are presented here, accompanied by complete descriptions and authoritative essays.

Science, Tools & Magic: Body and spirit, mapping the universe

Science, Tools & Magic

G. J. H. van Gelder

Ignacio Javier Sánchez Rojo

"A Literary History of Medicine by the Syrian physician Ibn Abī Uṣaybi'ah (d. 1270) is the earliest comprehensive history of medicine. It contains biographies of over 432 physicians, ranging from the ancient Greeks to the author's contemporaries, describing their training and practice, often as court physicians, and listing their medical works; all this interlaced with poems and anecdotes. These volumes present the first complete and annotated translation along with a new edition of the Arabic text showing the stages in which the author composed the work. Introductory essays provide important background. The reader will find on these pages an Islamic society that worked closely with Christians and Jews, deeply committed to advancing knowledge and applying it to health and wellbeing. Contributors: Ignacio Sánchez, N. Peter Joosse, Alasdair Watson, Bruce Inksetter, Franak Hilloowala"--

The 'Uyūn Al-anbā' Fī Ṭabaqāt Al-aṭibbā', of Ibn Abīuṣaybi'ah

Ranee Katzenstein

This is a guide to a ninth-century astronomical treatise, the Aratea, on loan from the University of Leiden and exhibited at the Museum. The book describes the manuscript, as a text. Subsequent chapters discuss ancient conceptions of the universe, the zodiacal signs, and the Planetarium miniatures. All miniatures from the manuscript are illustrated.

Ancient Constellations in a Medieval Manuscript

The Leiden Aratea

Marion Bush Smith

Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-century Divinatory Device

Evelyn Edson

The medieval view of the wider world around them and their portrayal of it in maps, charts, illuminations and paintings had very little to do geography. This beautifully illustrated volume examines and celebrates the medieval vision of the cosmos as a strictly hierarchial and heavenly sequence of spheres, and of a world, protected by a sky filled with an elaborate array of constellations, with Jerusalem in the centre and mythical beasts on the edge. The scholarly and very accessible discussion is accompanied by many colour illustrations of Christian and Islamic works of art and science, mostly dating from the 12th century to the revolutionary ideas of the 16th. The foreword is by Terry Jones.

Medieval Views of the Cosmos

Peter E. Pormann

The medical tradition that developed in the lands of Islam during the medieval period (c. 650-1500) has, like few others, influenced the fates and fortunes of countless human beings. It is the story of contact and cultural exchange across countries and creeds, affecting caliphs, kings, courtiers, courtesans, and the common crowd. In addition to being fascinating in its own right, it formed the roots from which modern Western medicine arose. Contrary to the stereotypical picture, medieval Islamic medicine was not simply a conduit for Greek ideas, but was a locus for innovation and change.The book is organised around five topics: the emergence of medieval Islamic medicine and its intense cross-pollination with other cultures, the theoretical medical framework, the function of physicians within the larger society, the medical care as seen through preserved case histories, and the role of magic and devout religious invocations in scholarly as well as everyday medicine. A concluding chapter on the 'afterlife' concerns the impact of medieval Islamic medicine upon the European medical tradition and its continued practice today. The aim of this book is not to compress the entire history of medieval Islamic medicine into a single small volume. Rather, it presents an overview, highlighted with particular examples.

Medieval Islamic Medicine

Yossef Rapoport

About a millennium ago, in Cairo, an unknown author completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, this book guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands, islands, features, and inhabitants. This treatise, known as The Book of Curiosities, was unknown to modern scholars until a remarkable manuscript copy surfaced in 2000. Lost Maps of the Caliphs provides the first general overview of The Book of Curiosities and the unique insight it offers into medieval Islamic thought. Opening with an account of the remarkable discovery of the manuscript and its purchase by the Bodleian Library, the authors use The Book of Curiosities to re-evaluate the development of astrology, geography, and cartography in the first four centuries of Islam. Their account assesses the transmission of Late Antique geography to the Islamic world, unearths the logic behind abstract maritime diagrams, and considers the palaces and walls that dominate medieval Islamic plans of towns and ports. Early astronomical maps and drawings demonstrate the medieval understanding of the structure of the cosmos and illustrate the pervasive assumption that almost any visible celestial event had an effect upon life on Earth. Lost Maps of the Caliphs also reconsiders the history of global communication networks at the turn of the previous millennium. It shows the Fatimid Empire, and its capital Cairo, as a global maritime power, with tentacles spanning from the eastern Mediterranean to the Indus Valley and the East African coast. As Lost Maps of the Caliphs makes clear, not only is The Book of Curiosities one of the greatest achievements of medieval mapmaking, it is also a remarkable contribution to the story of Islamic civilization that opens an unexpected window to the medieval Islamic view of the world.

Emilie Savage-Smith

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