Medieval Arabic Medical Autobiography

DAVID REISMAN
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Posterity was not kind to Ibn Ridwan, the fifth/eleventh-century Cairene physician and self-
proclaimed revisionist of the medical curriculum of his day. An example of this latter-day
opinion is to be had from his earliest biographer al-Qiftî (d. 646/1248) who concluded his
Ta^rikh al-hukamä' on something of a sour note with the following account of Ibn Ridwan. '
His name is 'All b. Ridwan b. "^Alî b. Ja'far, the physician. In his time he was a scholar in Egypt
during the caliphate of al-Mustansir^ in the mid-fifth [mid-eleventh] century. In his early days he
was an astrologer, sitting by the side of the road and earning his living, but not by any method
of verification {tahqiq), as is usual with astrologers. Then he read a little medicine and a little
logic, but he was one of those scholars who obfuscate {mughliq) instead of clarify {muhaqqiq).
Neither his face nor physique was attractive.' Nonetheless, a group of students did study with
him and transmit knowledge on his authority and his reputation spread. He wrote books, but not
the best in their genre; rather they were plagiarisms {mukhtatafa)'^ and composites of others'
words {multaqata), deceitful (mutanakkir) and derivative (mustanbata). Ibn Butlan [d. 444/1052]
had public debates, dialogues and disputes with him, some of which I have mentioned in the re-
ports about Ibn Butlan.'
I saw a book by Ibn Ridwan on astrology in which he comments on Ptolemy's Quadripar-
titum^ but adds nothing significant. I saw a work of his on the order of Galen's books on medi-
cine and on how to read them when studying, in which he hovers^ around the words of the
Alexandrians.^
As for his students, the things they used to transmit on his authority about medical aetiologies
{taHil tibbiyya), astrological doctrines, and logical terms were laughable, if the reports are to be
believed.' Ibn Ridwan remained in Egypt, at the forefront of dispensing the types of science for
which he was infamous, until he died sometime in the 460s [1060s-1070s].

1. Ed. J. Lippert (Leipzig: Th. Weicher, 1903), 443-44. An alternative English translation of the entry by
J. Schacht and M. Meyerhof can be had from their The Medico-Philosophical Controversy between Ibn Butlan and
Ibn Ridwan of Cairo (Cairo: Egyptian Univ. Faculty of Arts, 1937 [hereafter S/M]), 33-34.
2. 427-87/1036-94. Compare this to the statement of Ibn AM Usaybi'a below.
3. There may be a pun here: he was good at neither [astrological] sightings nor astronomy (hasan al-maniar
wa-lä at-hay'a), in which case this statement compares his looks to his shortcomings in the method of verifying
astrological data by correct sightings of stars (and mastery of cosmology in general).
4. Ibn ManzDr, Lisän al-'arab (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'ärif, s.n.), 2: 1200, defines this as "stealing": wa-khatifa al-
shaytân al-sam'a wa-khatatafa: istaraqa, wa-fi l-tanzil al-'aziz: ilia man khatifa al-khatfata, citing Q 37:10.
5. al-Qifti, Ta'rlkh al-hukumä', 298-314 and see Treatise No. Ill in S/M.
6. See GAL, 1: 484, no. 16; and GAS, 7: 42, 44.
7. hämmaflhi hawla, p. 444,1. 9, reading with manuscripts marked BM in S/M.
8. This must be a reference to Ibn Ridwan's al-Kitäb al-näfi' f¡ kayfiyyat ta'lim sinä'at al-tibb, ed. K. as-
SâmarrâT (Baghdad: Wizârât al-Ta'lïm al-'Âlî wa-1-Bahth al-'Ilmî, 1986). See A. Z. Iskandar, "An Attempted Re-
construction of the Late Alexandrian Medical Curriculum," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 20 (1976): 235-58,
and Dimitri Gutas, "The 'Alexandria to Baghdad' Complex of Narratives: A Contribution to the Study of Philo-
sophical and Medical Historiography among the Arabs," Documenti e stitdi sulla tradizione filosófica médiévale 10
(1999): 155-93, for the significance of Ibn Ridwan's "Alexandrian" narrative.
9. Al-Qifti's "reports" are likely those recorded by Ibn Butlan about Ibn Ridwan's students; see S/M, 90ff.

Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.4 (2009) 559

560 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.4 (2009)

Ibn Ridwan wrote in the mediocre script common to physicians {hukamä'), [but] straight and
with clear letters. I saw [copied] in his hand al-Hasan b. al-Hasan b. al-Haytham's Treatise on
the Light of the Moon^° and he had vowelled it correctly and well, which shows his thorough
study of such matters. He wrote at the end of it: 'All b. Ridwan b. "^Alî b. Ja'^far al-tabib wrote
this for himself; [the copy] was completed on Friday, mid-Sha'^ban 422 [early August, 1031]. "
Such a dim portrayal in a collection of biographies devoted to outstanding physicians,
medical practitioners, and philosophers can be taken only as an admonition among en-
comia. In al-Qifti's view, Ibn Ridwan was something of a dilettante, correctly trained in
neither astrology nor medicine; a dubious "compiler" of greater authors' works; perhaps
physically grotesque; a transmitter of mediocre knowledge to students of poor skill; none-
theless possessed of reputation, but not by virtue of mastering the disciplines to which he
lays claims; and, in the final judgment, naught but a tolerably reliable scribe.
The castigation of Ibn Ridwan by later biographers, perhaps beginning with al-Qifti,'^
is, of course, to be contrasted with their relative endorsement of his "nemesis" Ibn Butlân
(d. 444/1052), the Christian physician from Baghdad, student of Abu 1-Faraj b. al-Tayyib
(d. 434/1043). That such contrast would be made by the biographers is in itself not surpris-
ing, given that the oral (so reported) and written controversies between Ibn Ridwan and
Ibn Butlân form not only the most titillating aspect of both careers (and thus irresistible to
biographers'^), but also, as will be investigated here, the major source of biographical in-
formation that later biographers had of the two men. Important in this regard is the second
question to be addressed here: why would the biographers opt to champion Ibn Butlân rather
than Ibn Ridwan, insofar as both present equally disparaging portraits of each other in their
correspondence? The answer to this question is to be located in the very purpose of medical
"autobiography" in the medieval Islamic world as inherited from the Classical Greek authors
and how the result of such purpose was perceived—at least in Ibn Ridwân's case—by those
either unaware of or less willing to recognize this particular type of self-representation.
Ibn Ridwan is certainly not unknown to modern scholarship. He had something of a
banner year in 1937, when Franz Rosenthal provided a brief study of Ibn Ridwân's "auto-

10. This is likely his Maqälafl daw' al-qamr; see GAS, 6: 255, no. 3, which lists a 1927 German translation by
K. Kohl. Is the mention of Ibn al-Haytham (d. 432/1041) here connected in some way to the later report, by Ibn Abi
Usaybi'a, that Ibn Ridwan served the caliph al-Hakim? Both (in fact, all three) are reported to haye gone insane.
11. This record of Ibn Ridwân's colophon to his copy of Ibn al-Haytham's work is to be contrasted with the
note by Ibn Butlân, recorded also by al-Qifti (pp. 314-15), in his copy of his master Abu 1-Faraj b. al-Tayyib's
Thimär al-burhän [Excerpts of Posterior Analytics], in which Ibn al-Tayyib gives Ibn Butlân license (ijäza) to
teach his work. Ibn Ridwân's copy of Ibn al-Haytham's work, lacking as it does any record of teaching and licens-
ing, is no more than the work of a scribe (we should note also that Ibn al-Haytham was an older contemporary of
Ibn Ridwan and like him in Cairo; the biographers would find it odd that there is no such license in such fortuitous
circumstances). It is likely no coincidence that al-Qifti would make such a contrast, given that he was aware of Ibn
Butlân's treatment of the master-student relationship in one of his letters to Ibn Ridwan, also recorded at length by
al-Qiftî (although interestingly not the portion relevant here; see S/M, Ar. 53, Engl. 85-86), particularly on the trust-
worthiness of manuscripts that contain master-student licenses.
12. I am not aware of any earlier biographical sketches of Ibn Ridwan.
13. We are reminded here of Abu Bakr al-Râzî's statement, in his own "autobiography," The Philosopher's
Way of Life {Kitäb al-Sîra al-falsafiyyä), that "people love to spread the rare and odd report and avoid the mundane
and customary ones," ed. P. Kraus, Opera philosophica fragmentaque quae supersunt (Cairo, 1939), 100. An excel-
lent study of a different sort of medieval Arabic biography and its motives and aims is M. Cooperson's Classical
Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophet in the Age of al-Ma'mün (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000).
 REISMAN: Medieval Arabic Medical Autobiography 561

biography" in his Die arabische Autobiographie,^'^ the first detailed evaluation of this
genre of writing among medieval Arab authors, and Joseph Schacht and Max Meyerhof
presented nearly all of the texts associated with the Ibn Ridwan-Ibn Butlan debacle in their
The Medico-Philosophical Controversy between Ibn Butlan of Baghdad and Ibn Ridwan of
Cairo. '^ Rosenthal provided a German sumtnary of parts of the "autobiography" and cor-
rectly noted its "idealistic" character: "Ibn Ridwan does not give a mere curriculum vitae;
rather he sets down his "manner of living" [Lebensführung] (slra) as an ideal and exhorta-
tion. . . . He has little to report about the outer events of his life" (p. 22), and made the per-
cipient reference to Galen as one of the main inspirations for Ibn Ridwan's construction of
identity and way of life. The scholarly collaboration of Schacht and Meyerhof resulted in
what remains the fundamental sourcebook for the lives, careers, and contentious correspon-
dence of Ibn Ridwan and Ibn Butlan. In addition to an introductory chapter that places this
correspondence in its intellectual and historical context, the authors provided translations
of the major biographies of the two physicians (along with a first attempt to rationalize the
bibliographical information from the medieval sources) and established the Arabic text of
five of the letters of the correspondence, '^ accompanied by paraphrastic English translations
and excerpted summaries.
In the years since Rosenthal's study, many of Ibn Ridwan's tnedical works have been
published and some attention has been directed to the so-called autobiography. While
Rosenthal's analysis of Ibn Ridwan's "autobiography" is brief and somewhat schematic,
he deserves credit for recognizing that the genre in which Ibn Ridwan was working has
virtually nothing to do with the genre of autobiography as modern authors understand it. In
perhaps the singular instance that Rosenthal missed the mark in his brief evaluation of Ibn
Ridwan's "autobiography," the reason is easily identified: he did not find any thematic corre-
lation between a given trope in Ibn Ridwan and those of the classical medical literature that
Ibn Ridwan could have known. The example here is the amount of attention Ibn Ridwan
gives to accounting for his financial acumen, which Rosenthal first found pedantisch and
later perhaps a sign of financial greediness.'^ Much later, in 1984, Michael Dois presented
an equally brief analysis of Ibn Ridwan's text and astutely noted the juxtaposition of it and
the main elements of the Hippocratic Oath (in Ibn Ridwan's version) as presented in the
biography compiled by Ibn Abl Usaybi'^a. Like Rosenthal, Dois highlighted the apparent
inconsistency between Ibn Ridwan's obsession with his finances and the spirit of the Oath. '^

14. Studia Arabica I (Rome: Pontificum Institutum Biblicum, 1937); rpt. in F. Rosenthal, Muslim Intellectual
and Social History: A Collection of Essays (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990).
15. Subtitled A Contribution to the History of Greek Learning among the Arabs (Cairo: Egyptian Univ. Faculty
of Arts, 1937).
16. Three other letters to Ibn Butlan are listed in Ibn Abi Usaybi'a's bibliography of Ibn Ridwan's works (see
S/M, nos. 59, 61, 101), which S/M were unable to identify; they may simply represent variant titles gathered by Ibn
Abi Usaybi'a.
17. In offering a reason for why Ibn Ridwan would choose, between storing or selling books, the latter,
Rosenthal says: "It is not clear whether he meant that it was better to put unneeded books back into circulation
rather than keeping them out of sight. It is, however, more likely, given Ibn Ridwan's great concern with his
finances, that he was unwilling to pass up an opportunity to make some more money." From " 'Of Making Many
Books There is No End': The Classical Muslim View," in The Book in the Islamic World, ed. G. N. Atiyeh (Albany:
State Univ. of New York Press, 1995), 38. This may, of course, be an instance of Rosenthal's dry wit, given his
identification of the correct reason (stated there as mere hypothesis).
18. M. W. Dois, Medieval Islamic Medicine: Ibn Ridwan's Treatise "On the Prevention of Bodily Ills in Egypt"
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1984), 35.
562 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.4 (2009)

However, it can be said that both Rosenthal and Dois operate on the assumption that there is
more connection between the deontological literature of classical Greek medicine than with
any modern concepts of "self-revelation."
An indication that the study of medieval Arabic "autobiographical" literature again
attracted scholarly attention was the publication in 1996 of an issue of the journal Edebiyat
(7.2) devoted to papers on the genre, guest-edited by Dwight Reynolds, which was followed
in 2001 by the collective evaluation in monograph form, titled Interpreting the Self; Auto-
biography in the Arabic Literary Tradition, again headed by Reynolds. '^ Like Rosenthal
(and his predecessor, the classicist G. Misch), this collective undertaking takes as one pre-
supposition that a motivation for writing "autobiography" in medieval Islam was to present
the individual as an example of a highly esteemed predecessor (pp. 3-4). This is emphasized
by the observation that the term iira—which is what Ibn Ridwan's later biographer Ibn Abî
Usaybi'^a employed to introduce Ibn Ridwan's text—carries the "connotation of an exemplary
life" (p. 39). Finally, the connection between Ibn Ridwan's self-presentation and the Greek
physician Galen is made (p. 45).
In the case of Ibn Ridwän, all of the observations made in past scholarship are quite cor-
rect. Here the intention is threefold: to confirm these findings; to give a detailed examination
of Ibn Ridwan's literary influences; and, finally, to examine the later Arabic biographers'
reaction to the framework and premises at work in Ibn Ridwan's autobiography.
We are served especially well by Rosenthal's observations in the case of Ibn Ridwän for
a number of reasons. First, the slra composed by Ibn Ridwän was not intended to be read
as an independent "tell-all" report about his own life. Rather, it was designed to be read as
a protreptic to the study of medicine and, as such, originally formed one part of his major
work al-Kitäb al-näfi'fi l-tibb,^° in which he outlined the correct way to study medicine.

19. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 2001. While the publication edited by Reynolds takes
as presumption the findings of Rosenthal and Dois, the post-modernist perspective introduces yet another facet of
interpretation to be studied in further accounts of autobiographical literature. Two reviews of the publication can be
of use as a comparative analysis: W. Ouyang, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65 (2002):
574-76; and S. Selem, Biography, 25 (2002), 687-90.
20. Rosenthal, Die arabische Autobiographie, 22 n. 4, suggested that the sira may originally have been part of
Ibn Ridwan's Maqâlafi l-tatarruq bi-l-tibb ilâ sabil al-sa'ääa. It would seem that S/M, 46 n. 51, also suggested this
connection. It makes sense, given that the entry in Ibn Abl Usaybi'a's bibliography (aside from the title Maqâlafi
siratihi proper [Ibn Abî Usaybi%, ed. M. Müller, Cairo: n.p., 1882], 103) is Maqalafl sabll al-sa'ada wa-hiya al-
slra allati ikhtärahä U-nafsihi, "Discourse on the way to happiness, that is, the manner of life which he had chosen
for himself" (ibid., 104,1. 32; S/M, 46 no. 72), but the distinction between the two is the absence of the word tatarruq
in the latter. Moreover, Ibn Abi Usaybi'a records the actual title Maqäla fl l-tatarruq bi-l-tibb ilä al-sa'äda (sic;
missing sabil) a few lines above (104, 11. 28-29). We must imagine that S/M made the identification on the basis
of a very casual reading of Ibn Abî Usaybi'a. However, Ibn Abî Usaybi'a introduces his excerpt of Ibn Ridwan's
"slra" by stating: Ibn Ridwän recorded the following text about his way of life on [from?] "how he learned the dis-
cipline of medicine and its conditions," wa-qad dhakara 'Ali.. .fl siratihi min kayfiyyat ta'allumihi sinâ'at al-tibb
wa-ahwälihä mä hädhä nassuhu (Ibn Abî Usaybi'a, op. cit., 99) and records the title as al-Kitäb al-näfi'fi kayfiyyat
ta'Um sinâ'at al-tibb (103,11. 29-30). The similarity between the words of Ibn Abî Usaybi'a's introduction and
his record of the title is unmistakable (although not exact). Now, in the colophon to MS Chester Beatty 4026 of Ibn
Ridwan's al-Kitâb al-näfi', the anonymous scribe notes that "[this work] has a third part, as we learn from [Ibn Abî
Usaybi'a's] biographies of physicians" (wa-lahu maqäla thälitha, häkadhä wajadtuß tabaqât al-atibbä', 37v). This
is correct. Ibn Ab! Usaybi'a includes in his bibliography of Ibn Ridwan's works: "al-Kitäb al-näfi'ß kayfiyyat ta'Um
sinâ'at al-tibb, in three parts." M. C. Lyons, "The Kitäb al-Näfi of 'Alî ibn Ridwän," IQ 6 (1961), 65 n. 3, has sug-
gested that this miscount may be the result of Ibn Abî Usaybi'a's misreading of the heading for part two, which states
that the part is divided into three chapters (abwäb); this hypothesis seems difficult to accept as Ibn Abî Usaybi'a seems
to have known the text better than that. In his biography of Galen, he excerpts a good portion of the first chapter of
 REISMAN: Medieval Arabic Medical Autobiography 563

in its ethical, practical, and theoretical aspects. Such deontologieal treatises as Ibn Ridwan's
sîra formed a common genre of medieval medical literature, which found its origin in imi-
tation of the Galenic tradition and its purpose in providing professional standards of conduct
for physicians, akin to the Hippocratic Oath and Code. Second, and perhaps equally a part
of the Galenic tradition, the inclusion of seemingly personal remarks in such ethical writings
was intended to serve simply as an example of imitable conduct and attainable virtuous
reputation. Finally, with the exception of those individual-specific examples, the entirety of
Ibn Ridwan's so-ealled autobiography consists of paraphrastic renderings of classical Greek
ethical, medical, and philosophical works. In other words, there is no indication that Ibn
Ridwan presented historical facts of his life in the composition of such an ethical work; and
there is no indication that such genre as "autobiography" as modern authors know it existed
in the medieval Arabic medical literature, just as there was no such genre in the Greek lit-
erature from which the former took its cue. We can properly conclude that Rosenthal's
identification of this form of ethical writing in the Arabic medical literature, and the con-
clusions reached by him on its nature, scope, and aim, are pertinent. At any rate, our under-
standing of the aims of Ibn Ridwan's sîra can be elucidated by his own sources of inñuence,
that is, the classical medical texts. This corpus, both in classical as well as medieval Arabic
texts, constituted, for the theorist of medicine, a sufficient guide to the outlines of moral
and behavioral standards in the absence of institutionalized forms of assessment and imple-
mentation of such.^' Other literary frames, especially those of self-revelation, historicity, or,
indeed, record of personal thoughts, can be dismissed.
The framework of Ibn Ridwan's sîra evinces close reading of two seminal texts of med-
ical ethics: the Horkos, or Oath, of the Hippocratic corpus, called in its Arabic transla-
tion al-Qism, al-Wasîya, or al-Aymän; and the Nomos (Ar. Nämüs), the Canon or Law,
of Hippocrates.^^ The virtues of character adumbrated in these sources, when not equally
common to other classical texts, address the physician's interaction with the patient specifi-
cally and his participation more broadly in the construction of a public image. In his text,
Ibn Ridwan addresses humility, compassion, fair treatment of rich and poor, discretion with
others' secrets (both of health and home life), the purity of intentions, and the chastity
of inclinations. All of these qualities find their physical manifestations in the physician's

al-Kitäb al-näfi', dealing with Galen's books, and introduces it as that which Ibn Ridwan said in his al-Kitäb al-näfi'
ß kayfiyyat ta'lim sinä'at al-tibb (ed. N. Rida', Beirut; n.p., n.d., 154,11. lOff.). From all of this, we know that Ibn
Abî Usaybi'a (1) knew of an al-Kitäb al-näfi' in three parts and (2) knew of an independently circulating Maqäla
fi slratihi. Furthermore, we know that (3) when the scribe of MS Chester Beatty 4026 came to copy the Kitäb al-näfi'
(sometime after Ibn Abî Usaybi'a wrote his 'Vyün al-anbä'\ the MS itself lacks a date but Arberry dates it to the
eighth/fourteenth century in his catalogue of the library), it lacked the third part. No such discrepancy seems to have
been attached to the transmission history of the Maqäla fi l-tatarruq bi-l-tibb. Furthermore, the trope of autodidactism
in the "slra" seems more consonant with the subject-matter of al-Kitäb al-näfi' than with the Maqäla fl l-tatarruq
(although see the discussion by A. Dietrich in Über den Weg zur Glückseligkeit durch den ärztlichen Beruf [Gött-
ingen; Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1982], 8-9, on the Greek influence detectable in that work in light of the argu-
ment I make below).
21. Certainly, the market-place inspector (muhtasib) of medieval Islamic cities would have had as one of his re-
sponsibilities the identification of medical quackery (for more of his unsavory responsibilities, see S/M, 57), but
this should not be understood as examination of the medical student's entry into the profession. I thank Dimitri
Gutas for the reference to the office of muhtasib; I cannot be certain that my conclusion here conforms to his unstated
inference.
22. I read the Arabic translations of these two works in Ibn Abî Usaybi'a's 'UyUn al-anbä'fi tabaqät al-atibbä'
in the edition of N. Rida', 45-46.
564 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.4 (2009)

personal health, achieved by daily physical exercise, and hygiene, evident in his spotless
clothes and pleasant perfume (here Ibn Ridwan had the literary portrait of Galen himself,
who was nazif al-thiyäb and tayyib al-rä'iha).^^
Galen, as commentator of Hippocrates and in other ways the point of departure for Ibn
Ridwan's understanding and explication of the medical tradition, could not but leave his
stamp on the latter's sira. Two other minor texts by Galen, the abridged ethical work Peri
ethon [or Peri aithon] {Fl l-akhläq)^'^ and the Protreptikds {Fl l-hathth),^^ inform Ibn
Ridwan's conceptualization of the evolution in the individual of a natural interest in and a
rational determination of one's suitability for medical study. However, these texts may have
served Ibn Ridwan merely as further confirmation of the statement of the Nämüs that "Any-
one who wishes to learn the discipline of medicine must be possessed of an excellent suitable
nature, intense aspiration, and total desire. The most important of all of these is nature.''^^
What is most curious, or at least singled out as such by modern scholars, is the seem-
ingly obsessive attention Ibn Ridwan directs to outlining his management of personal fi-
nances. He tells us that the toil and impoverishment suffered by the student of medicine
will eventually result in a practice that provides sufficient funds for a life of moderate
financial stability, and then addresses the uses to which such stability should be put. That
Ibn Ridwan's financial deliberations take, in their specific recommendations, inspiration from
ps.-Aristotle's Oeconomica, translated into Arabic as Fï tadblr al-manzil by "^Isa Ibn Zur'^a
(d. 398/1008), and commented by Ibn al-Tayyib,^'' is clear, but the reason Ibn Ridwan
would devote such attention to the matter is less so. Here the underlying tension between
the teachings of Hippocrates and Galen on the issue of monetary fortune in relation to the
practice of medicine must play a role in Ibn Ridwan's concerns. He learned the following
from Galen's That the Best Physician is a Philosopher: "The student cannot arrive at the
aim of [medicine] if he argues that material wealth is more noble than virtue. [Thus, he is]
not only obliged to look down upon wealth, but he should also have the utmost desire and

23. He had a similar literary portrait as that in Mukhtär al-hikam wa-mahasin al-kalim by his contemporary
Mubashshir b. Fâtik (ed. 'A.-R. Badawi, Madrid, 1958) in which Galen was described as tayyib al-rä'iha and
naqiyy al-thiyäb (p. 293), and Ptolemy (p. 252) as tayyib al-rä'iha and nazlf al-thiyäb. Ci. the statement attributed
to Pythagoras in Hunayn b. Ishaq's Nawädir al-faläsifa: "The one who freshens his odor increases his intellect"
(ed. Badawi, as Ädäb al-faläsifa, Kuwait, 1985, 209).
24. See the edition and study by R Kraus, "Kitäb al-Akhläq li-Jälinüs',' Bulletin of the Faculty of Ans of the
Egyptian University 5 (1939): 1-52; the studies by S. M. Stern, "Some Fragments of Galen's On dispositions ([Peri
Ethon]) in Arabic," Classical Quarterly n.s. 6 (1956), 91-101; and J. N. Mattock, "A Translation of the Arabic
Epitome of Galen's Book Peri Ethon" in Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, ed. S. M. Stem, A. Hourani,
and V. Brown (Oxford, 1972), 235-60 (containing an English translation of the text established by Kraus).
25. See the Arabic summary Mukhtasar Maqälat JälinOsß l-hathth 'ala ta'allum al-'ulüm wa-sinä'ät in Diräsät
wa-nusüs fi l-falsafa wa-l-'ulûm 'inda l-'arab, ed. 'A.-R. Badawi (Beirut: al-Mu'assasa al-'Arabiyya li-1-Diräsat
wa-1-Nashr, 1986), 187-89.
26. Nämüs, op. cit., 46, 11. 7-8.
27. The text is edited by L. Maalouf in Traités inédits d'anciens philosophes arabes, musulmans et chrétiens:
Avec des traductions de traités grecs d Aristote, de Platon et de Pythagore par Ishâq ibn Honein, publiés dans la
Revue al Machriq, ed. L. Cheikho et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1974), 50-52. This work, or the first book
at least (1343al-1345b4) was paraphrased by Ibn al-Tayyib in Thamarat [incipit: Thimär] maqälat Aristätälls fl
Tadbir al-manzil, MS Escorial 888, 145v-149r. Cheikho attributes the actual translation to Ibn Zur'a. A discussion
of the attribution to Ibn al-Tayyib is found in the German translation by Z. Shunnar, in U. Victor, Oikonomikos: Das
erste Buch der Ökonomik-Handschriften. Text, Übersetzung, und Kommentar, und seine Beziehungen zur Ökonomik-
literatur (Königstein/Ts.: A. Hain, 1983), 66-68. Cf F E. Peters, Aristoteles Arabus: The Oriental Translations
and Commentaries on the Aristotelian Corpus (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), 62-63, where the work is classified as
pseudepigraphy.
 REISMAN: Medieval Arabic Medical Autobiography 565

preference for hardship over the easy life."'^^ In addition, Ibn Ridwan also quotes Hippocrates
in his own The Path to Happiness Through Medicine: "There is nothing in the world that
would equal the rate of the physician since there is no life but through one's health and
none of life's tasks could be completed but as a result of one's health. Safety from illness
is naught but safety from death. For this reason nothing compensates, not even if the
physician's rate is greatly inflated."^^
That Ibn Ridwan would perceive this dichotomy of values as a dilemma is all but
certain, given the space he devotes to the question of finances in the sîra. However, we can
also be certain that, since Ibn Ridwan was as well versed in reconciling apparent inconsis-
tencies in the medical literature as the neoplatonist philosophers were with Plato and Aris-
totle,^" we can imagine a number of ways in which he could resolve this one. At least one
way would be to observe that Galen speaks of the student of medicine where Hippocrates
has in mind the practicing physician. Thus, the statements might suggest an evolutionary
attitude toward money on the part of the student and then of the accomplished physician.
However, Galen likely provided Ibn Ridwan with the answer, albeit in the form of a chal-
lenge, again from the Best Physician: "Are you able to say that we would find anyone in our
time whose moderation in acquiring money has reached such a stage that he does not restrict
himself simply to saying that sufficiency is achieved by the amount required to provide for
one's needs, but also corroborates it in [his] actions?"^' That the life of the physician Ibn
Ridwan outlines in the sira rises to this challenge is clear from Ibn Ridwân's assertion:
"[With the money I make] I spend on my health and the maintenance of my household
in amounts that are neither profiigate nor miserly, but which adhere to the middle amount
according to what rational discernment deems necessary in each instance."^^
The moderate path in financial acumen certainly reñects those other values of tempera-
ment adumbrated in the sira; Ibn Ridwân's source for this assertion, however, points us to
the other tradition noted as influence in the sira by Rosenthal: the Neopythagorean. In the
commentary by Iamblichus on the so-called Golden Verses (another version of which
Rosenthal first identified in Arabic literature in Miskawayh's Tahdhlb al-akhläq^^), Ibn
Ridwan located that "middle amount" crucial to the acquisition and disbursement of money.
Although the Arabic terms for the extremes of that moderation—tabdhir and taqtir—are
shared with the Arabic Nicomachean Ethics,^"' the passage that Ibn Ridwan employs has

28. Galeni Quod optimus medicus sit quoque philosophus, Arabic Maqalat Jälinusfl annahu yajibu an yaküna
al-tabib al-fädil faylasüf, trans. Hunayn b. Ishâq, ed. with Ger. trans. P Bachmann, "Galens Abhandlung darüber,
dass der vorzügliche Arzt Philosoph sein muss," Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen (1965),
1-67; the quotation is found on p. 18.
29. Maqälafl l-tatarruq bi-l-tibb ilä sabll l-sa'äda, ed. Dietrich, 35. Dietrich identifies the source of this quo-
tation in his notes, p. 54.
30. For a prime example of this "harmonization" in Arabic philosophical texts, see al-Fârâbï's al-Jam' bayna
ra'yay al-haklmayn, ed. and trans. F. M. Najjar and D. Mallet as L'harmonie entre ¡es opinions de Platon et
d'Aristote: Texte arabe et traduction (Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1999).
31. Galeni Quod optimus medicus, op. cit.
32. Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, 'Uym al-anbä', ed. Müller, 100.
33. See Rosenthal, "Some Pythagorean Documents Transmitted in Arabic," Orientalia n.s. 10 (1941), 104-11,
383-95.
34. The process of just evaluation of action and statement in Ibn Ridwân's description of his spending habits
with relation to his household may be related to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics—consider especially the transla-
tions tabdhir (prodigality) and taqtir (meanness), cf. al-Akhläq, ed. Badawi, 131,1. 11 = 1119b27); but more to the
general spirit of the Pythagorean injunction from the Carmina áurea [CA] (13-15), ed. H. Daiber {Neuplatonische
Pythagorica in arabischem Gewände: Der Kommentar des Iamblichus zu den Carmina áurea. Ein verlorener
 566 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.4 (2009)

affinity with Iamblichus's commentary: "Your aim in acquiring money [should] be to spend
(:sarf) and dispense (infäq) it in the correct ways on those things necessary for your welfare
and for those in need of what you possess Striving for moderation (i'tidäl) and sticking
to the middle (wasal:) is most suitable." ^^
This, however, is not the locus of the infiuence Rosenthal saw of the Golden Verses on
Ibn Ridwan's sîra. Rather, it was another practice esteemed by Ibn Ridwan, the daily review
of one's actions and thoughts, that suggested itself. The Pythagoras of the Golden Verses
says: "Do not grant your eyes sleep before you review (tasaffaha) the actions you committed
during the day.. . . When you have done something reprehensible, let it be cause for great
alarm; when you have done something decent, let it be cause for joy. For this [practice] will
pave the way to your approximation of divine excellence."^* As Ibn Ridwan restates: "In
my private time, I review my actions and sentiments of the day; I take pleasure in those that
were noble, good, or beneficial and I regret and swear to avoid in the future those that were
evil, useless, or harmful."^^
In this particular case of infiuence, we find the happy pairing of Neopythagorean ethics
with the personal practice of Galen who, as Ibn Ridwan's student Mubashshir b. Fätik
(eleventh century) notes, used to recite the Golden Verses nightly. It is no coincidence that
Ibn Fâtik, in his Mukhtar al-hikam puts in the mouth of Galen—Ibn Ridwan's "model" for
the sira—the very admonition to daily moral review found in the Golden Verses.^^ The
neopythagoreanism we see as the defining mark of the Hippocratic Oath is met again, then,
with Ibn Ridwan.
Thus, there is little of Ibn Ridwan's personal voice in the slra, and this comes as no sur-
prise, given the function of that genre as ethical protreptic in the medical literature. What

griechischer Text in arabischer Überlieferung (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1995), 52: "Pythagoras said: You should
constrain yourself to impartial judgment (insäf) in your speech and action and for no reason should you take on the
responsibility of doing anything without discernment (tamylz). Know that death assuredly falls upon everyone." Cf
Ibn al-Tayyib's translation, ed. N. Linley, Proclus' Commentary on the Pythagorean Golden Verses: Arabic Text and
Translation, Arethusa monographs 10 (Buffalo, N.Y.; Dept. of Classics, State Univ. of New York, 1984), 72-73.
35. This is a combination of two passages of Iamblichus's commentary; CA 16, ed. Daiber, 54, comm. 106-13;
"With regard to property, let your aim be that as soon as you acquire it (iktisäb), you spend it [itläf). The Commen-
tator said: In saying this, [Pythagoras] does not teach greed (hirs) in the acquisition and accumulation of property.
Rather, he means that your aim in seeking and acquiring property [should] not be to amass (iddikhär) and hoard
(ihtikâr) it. Instead, your aim in acquiring it [should] be to spend (sarf) and dispense (infäq) it in the correct ways
on those things necessary for your welfare and for those in need of what you have; for when one makes this his aim
with property, he does not seek more than what he needs and gathers and seeks what comes to him in the correct
ways"; and also CA 37-38, ed. Daiber, 70-74; "Pythagoras said; Do not be a spendthrift (mutlif), like one who has
no idea what he has in his possession, nor should you be stingy (shahlh) so that you lose liberality (hurriyya). Rather,
the most noble [way] in all things is moderation (qasd). The Commentator said; He says this to prevent profiigacy
(saraf) and miserliness (taftir) and to encourage moderation, which is spending in the correct ways. He says that
you should not at any time waste (tabdhuru) what you have like one who, while striving for rank and status, is not
aware of what he has, and so finds himself lacking what he needs at a time when he needs it. But neither does
[Pythagoras] promote accumulating (jam') and hoarding (ihtikär) and he forbids you to apply what you possess in
the wrong ways, thus taking leave of liberality and equity ('adl) in spending (infäq). In both cases, striving for mod-
eration (i'tidäl) and sticking to the middle (wasat) is most suitable and requisite. [Pythagoras] does not limit himself
to making moderation (qasd) in the case of [spending] alone praiseworthy; rather, he praises it in all affairs, because
by his preference for moderation, Plato also came to make God the cause of moderation and equity in all things."
36. This is the reformulation of Ibn Ridwan's contemporary Mubashshir b. Fätik in his Mukhtar al-hikam; see
ed. Badawi, 65 (sub Pythagoras).
37. Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, 'Uyun al-anbä', ed. Müller, 100.
38. Mukhtar al-hikam, ed. Badawi, 296.
 REISMAN: Medieval Arabic Medical Autobiography 567

should occasion some interest, since less observed, is the implementation on the part of Ibn
Ridwan's biographers of what I have termed "literary subversion" or "literary retribution."^^
The process of undermining Ibn Ridwan's ethical model began with al-Qifti, but without
its necessary context. It is taken up with determination by Ibn Abî Usaybi^a in a much more
detailed manner.'*^ The strategy employed by him to this end is both subtle and well con-
ceived, and is directed toward denying the Ibn Ridwän of history the virtues of the first-
person paradigm of his sîra. An outline of the relevant passages follows here, after discus-
sion of the more salient features.
Ibn Abî Usaybi^a begins with what are ostensibly "biographical" additions to the slra.'^^
Such "biographical" re-creation, containing what appears to be a dispassionate record of
"historical facts" about Ibn Ridwan's own life, is a marvelous example of collusion and
subversion. Collusion because, inasmuch as it functions as an addition to the sira, we are
to understand that yet more "facts" are being presented of Ibn Ridwan's own life; Ibn Abî
Usaybi'^a is, we are to think, filling in details left unaccounted in the sira. Equally, however,
it is subversion because, if read carefully, each of those putative facts are intended to deny
Ibn Ridwän the virtues of the physician as he reconstructed them in his ethical tract.
We can be confident that Ibn Abî Usaybi'^a is, in fact, aware that Ibn Ridwan's sira
should not be understood as historical and that he consciously sought to divest Ibn Ridwän
of the virtues the latter assigns himself (understood by the biographers) as model physician
in the slra. This is clear from the tactics he employs; and from his use of other texts by Ibn
Ridwän as ammunition against Ibn Ridwän. For example, he quotes the very text on which
Ibn Ridwän constructed his sira (that is, the Hippocratic Oath) and here in Ibn Ridwan's own
paraphrastic commentary, "The Seven Hippocratic Virtues.'"*^ In Ibn Abî Usaybi'^a's quo-
tation of that paraphrase, we find all of the essential virtues of the model physician found
in Ibn Ridwan's slra. The physician has the natural qualities necessary for study (physical
fitness, sharp wits, and wholesome nature); the rational ability to refine those natural qualities
into moral ones, including compassion for his fellowman (rich or poor, enemy or friend); a
chaste intention in his dealings with others; a sincerity of speech and action; and the will-
ingness to be discrete about others' private lives, all of which moral qualities preclude any
possibility of inflicting harm, and all of which manifest themselves in what we now call
the "image" of the doctor: clean—preferably white—and spotless clothes accompanied by
exemplary hygiene, both pointers to private moral excellence.
However, one crucial item is missing from Ibn Abî Usaybi^a's quotation of Ibn Ridwan's
commentary on the Oath. We find oblique reference to it in his strategy of undermining the
image presented in Ibn Ridwan's sira. Where others have located the disjunct between the
physician of the Oath and the ethical model of the sira in the obsessive attention given to
personal finances of the latter, Ibn Abî Usaybi'^a finds offense in a much more significant
contradiction. His first parry against Ibn Ridwän is found in his "biographical" sketch: Ibn
Ridwän was dismissive of past masters because he had no teacher that might serve as the
model voice of that traditional authority.'*^ lVloreover, in order to legitimate that claim, that

39. See D. C. Reisman, "Stealing Avicenna's Books: A Study of the Historical Sources for the Life and Times
of Avicenna," in Before and After Avicenna, ed D. C. Reisman, Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science 52
(Leiden: Brill, 2003), 90-127.
40. See the entry for Ibn Ridwän in Ibn Abî Usaybi'a, 'Uyun al-anbä', ed. Müller, 99-105.
41. His quotation of the sira is found at 99,1. 20-101,1. 4, after whieh, at 101,1. 5-105,1. 14, Ibn Abî Usaybi'a
inserts his "retribution."
42. 'Uyun al-anbä', ed. Müller, 102,1. 28-103,1. 6.
43. This he does by baldly describing Ibn Ridwän as contentious, and then quoting Ibn Butlan's refutation of
autodidaetism, 101,1. 1-102,1. 25 (the latter is translated by S/M, 83ff.).
 568 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.4 (2009)

there can be no true scholar without mentor, Ibn Abi Usaybi'^a quotes the entire text of Ibn
Butlan's refutation of autodidactism, seven paragraphs originally composed by Ibn Butlan
as part of his correspondence with Ibn Ridwan.'•'•
The focus of Ibn Butlan's insistence on study with a master lies in epistemological claims
(oral teaching employs more of the senses, allows for question and response, and so forth);
he argues that such study is more likely to lead to correct knowledge. This is not Ibn Abi
Usaybi'^a's concern, however; in fact, elsewhere he tells us that, of Ibn Ridwan and Ibn
Butlan, the former was the better physician and philosopher.'^s Rather, for Ibn Abî Usaybi'^a,
as for Ibn Butlan before him, the method of study between master and student ensures the
development of a moral requisite for scholarship. It invests its recipient with a respect for
past authority. In other words, what Ibn Abî Usaybi'^a, and his predecessor al-Qiftî, found
so offensive about Ibn Ridwan was his caricature of the medical teachers of his time and his
vigorous refutation of past medical authorities such as Hunayn b. Ishaq, Abu Bakr al-Râzî,
and Ibn Butlan's own master, Abu 1-Faraj b. al-Tayyib."*^
If we return for a moment to Ibn Ridwan's commentary on the Hippocratic Oath, we find
two crucial elements missing in Ibn Abî Usaybi'^a's quotation. The first is, of course, the
very first condition of that Oath. I quote from the Arabic translation: "I will consider the one
who teaches me this discipline as my parent and I will share with him my liveUhood.'"*^
That Ibn Abî Usaybi'^a did not include this in his quotation from Ibn Ridwan's com-
mentary is, needless to say, significant.''^ It also provides a clue as to why he would follow
his record of Ibn Ridwan's death date with yet another one of Ibn Ridwan's reformulations
of the Oath:
When one has a disciplitie in which his limbs are well trained and because of which people
praise him and by meatis of which he earns a sufficient amount in the course of a part of his day,
the best thing that he should do with the rest of his day is to spend it in obedience to his Lord,
and the best form of such obedience is to reflect on the heavens and praise their JVIaster (glory
to Him!) "9
This is clearly meant to call to the mind of the reader the final part of the Hippocratic
Oath, indeed, the crowning apodosis of all its conditions (again from the Arabic): "Whoever
fulfills this oath and does not violate any part of it will be perfect in his private and profes-
sional life in the best and finest manner; people will praise him for all time. Whoever violates
it will incur the opposite" [my emphasis].^"
We are to understand that Ibn Abî Usaybi'^a construed Ibn Ridwan's valorization of auto-
didactism, of learning on one's own from books, as the singular violation of the Hippocratic
Oath, the very text that served Ibn Ridwan as the scaffolding for his ethical sîra. In retribu-
tion for that violation, Ibn Ridwan was to receive not the praise of future biographers, but
their damnation.
One final question: can we view Ibn Ridwan's scorn for the medical teachers of his day
and his refutation of past authority as the only instance of the "uniquely personal" in his

44. This can be found in S/M, Arabic text, 50ff.

45. See S/M, 60.
46. 'Uyun al-anbä', ed. Müller, 101,11. 17-21.
47. 'Uyun al-anbä', ed. Rida', 45,1. 7.
48. In fact, we cannot know that this theme actually played a part in Ibn Ridwan's commentary; it exists now
only in Ibn Abî Usaybi'a's lemmata.
49. 'UyOn al-anbä', ed. Müller, 102,11. 25-27.
50. 'Uyun al-anbä', ed. Rida', 45,11. 22-23.
 REISMAN; Medieval Arabic Medical Autobiography 569

siral In other words, does such skeptic derision of the past constitute that "consciousness
of self" that Rosenthal found absent from medieval Arabic sira literature, and which made
that literature not "autobiography" but "idealization"? Not really, no. What his biographers
deemed to be Ibn Ridwan's departure from the normative ethics of the Hippocratic ethical
literature, Ibn Ridwan conceived to be representative, not of his own life, but of Galen's
ideal model of the philosopher-physician. In his The Order of [My] Own Books, Galen de-
cried what he saw as the blind obedience of his contemporaries to the past authority of a
given medical or philosophical sect and set forth the counter-example of his own process of
arriving, through independent reasoning, at his own beliefs.^' In the end, then, little of Ibn
Ridwan's so-called autobiography stems from consideration of the "uniquely personal." It
turns out that skeptical individualism is itself a topos of the classical medical tradition. The
fact that Ibn Ridwan's earliest biographers, writing at least two centuries after him, were
unaware or chose to be unaware of this aspect of the Galenic tradition in Ibn Ridwan's sira
represents an interesting development in later authors' conception of the aims and articula-
tions of earlier autobiographical literature.

51. See Galénou peri tes taxeos ton idion biblion, in Claudii Galeni Pergameni scripta minora, ed. I. M.
Recensuerunt Ioannes Marquardt, Georgius Helmreich (Lipsiae: B. G. Teubner, 1884-1893; rpt. Amsterdam, 1967),
2: 91-124.
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