مسالك الابصار في ممالك الامصار 309

English (machine translation) 309

Language: English

309.e117 — 6 parts
309.e118 — 6 parts
309.e119 — 11 parts

He is the author of gleaming maxims and pithy sayings, of awakening admonitions, of embellishments worth memorising, and of similes that took hold of the edges of exhortation. He uttered them from a mind that was clear and not clouded, that kept faith and did not betray; so they came as happy inspirations and flowed as generous gifts, and they took up a dwelling in hearts, and from the moment they entered it they settled there and claimed it as their own.

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Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa said: "He had many treatments and much experience in medicine, and versatility in the philosophical sciences. Among the things he said in his book which he named Muntaḥal al-jawhar:

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'O ruler! Beware the stumbles of time, fear the domination of the days and the anguish of fortune, and know that deeds have their recompense, so beware the consequences, for they are treacherous; be on your guard against them. The decrees of fate

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are hidden, so prepare for them; time is changeable, so beware its turns of fortune; it is base in its onslaught, so fear its assault; it is quick to catch one off guard, so do not feel safe from its assault.

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Know that whoever does not cure himself of the sickness of sins in the days of his life, how far he is from a cure in an abode that has no medicine! Whoever subdues his senses and makes them serve the good he puts forward, his merit becomes plain and his nobility evident. Whoever does not control his soul, which is one, will not control his senses, which are five; and if he does not control his senses despite their fewness, and his soul despite its lowliness, it will be hard for him to control his aides, given their great number and roughness, and the common subjects in the farthest lands and the edges of the kingdom will be even further beyond control.'"

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And among them:

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A physician through whom bodies are protected and through whom the best of portions are fully granted. Were old age to return to him, he would restore to it the garment of its youth and exchange the shroud of grey hair for its cloak. He settled souls in their bodies and brought soundness back to their corruption, so that they settled firmly, removed harm, and made peace with the bodies, no longer recoiling from them nor drawing away from their union. Thus they cast off the after-effects of sickness and seized the heels of the incurable disease even when it had swallowed [the patient], and through him health was found when meeting it had become rare, and the term was prolonged when hope of its continuance had been lost.

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Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa said: "He was very learned in medicine, good at treatment, subtle in management, a philosopher among those pointed to in learning, and a master of the language of India and the language of the Persians. It was he who translated the book of Shānāq on poisons into Persian. He lived in the time of al-Rashīd and came to Iraq in his days; then he learned Arabic and used to translate into it.

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Among the reports about the caliphs is that al-Rashīd fell gravely ill with an illness in which the physicians' medicine was of no avail. Abū ʿUmar al-Aʿjamī said to him: 'O Commander of the Faithful! In India there is a physician called Mankah, the foremost of their ascetics and philosophers; if you were to send for him, perhaps God would grant you healing at his hands.'

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So he equipped someone to bring him a gift to help him with his journey, and had him brought to him. He treated him and he recovered, so he assigned him an ample stipend and sufficient wealth. Then, while he was passing by al-Khuld, he came upon a man who had spread out his cloak and laid many drugs upon it, and stood describing a compounded electuary. He said: 'This is a medicine for such-and-such,' and he enumerated many sicknesses and various ailments, until he left no complaint without mentioning that this medicine was its cure. Mankah smiled and said: 'In any case the king of the Arabs is ignorant, for if the matter is as this man says, what led him to have me carried from my country to him, take me far from my family, and bear the great cost of my provisions, when he finds this before his very eyes and in front of his gaze?

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And if it is not as he says, why does he not kill him? For the religious law has permitted the blood of this man and those like him, since if he is killed it is one soul by whose death many souls live, while if he is left with this ignorance he kills souls every day. This is a corruption of mind and a weakness in kingship.'

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And among them:

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A physician [who stood] between deviation and balance, health and sickness; he divined what had occurred, kept his oath and did not break it, was acquainted with every cause, combined the two extremes of concision and prolixity, and prescribed for every age the treatment suited to it, which no one else could know. He coupled this with other virtues in which he strutted with pride, and so encompassed merits uncountable in their abundance, whose trace does not fade; and often wonders and fine things were related of his medicine in which a faultfinder had nothing to say.

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Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa said: "He was one of the learned men of India, expert in their treatments, and he had power and prognostications in foreknowledge. He was in Iraq in the time of al-Rashīd.

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Yūsuf the Calculator, known as Ibn al-Dāya, related from a client of Sallām al-Abrash that his patron told him that one day the tables were set before al-Rashīd while Ibn Bakhtīshūʿ was absent. He sought him everywhere but did not find him, and began cursing him. Then he came in while al-Rashīd was cursing him, and said: 'If the Commander of the Faithful were occupied with weeping for his cousin Ibrāhīm b. Ṣāliḥ, it would be more fitting for him than attacking me.'

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He said to him: 'And what is his news?' He informed him that he had left him with a last breath that would expire at the time of the night prayer.

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Al-Rashīd's distress over him became intense, and he ordered the tables removed. Jaʿfar b. Yaḥyā said: 'Bakhtīshūʿ's medicine is Byzantine, and Ibn Bahla's medicine is Indian; if the Commander of the Faithful sees fit to order him brought, so that what he has may be known?' He ordered him to go to him; he felt his pulse and then said: 'I will tell the news only to the Commander of the Faithful.' Al-Rashīd was informed, and Ibn Bahla was brought in to him. When he stood before him he said: 'O Commander of the Faithful! You are the imam and the one who binds the banners of judgeship for the judges; whatever you decree, no judge may annul it, nor any successor after you abrogate it. I call you to witness against me, and all who are present with you, that if Ibrāhīm b. Ṣāliḥ dies this night — indeed, in this illness — every slave owned by Ṣāliḥ b. Bahla shall be free for the sake of God, every mount of his shall be an endowment in the path of God, all that he owns shall be alms for the poor, and every wife of his shall be divorced thrice, irrevocably.'

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Al-Rashīd said: 'Woe to you, Ṣāliḥ! You have sworn concerning the unseen.'

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Ṣāliḥ said: 'Not at all, O Commander of the Faithful! The unseen is only that of which no one has knowledge and for which there is no evidence; I said what I said only on clear evidence and manifest signs.'

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He said: Al-Rashīd was pleased by what he said, and he had food brought, and he ate and drank. When it was the time of the evening prayer, news came of the death of Ibrāhīm b. Ṣāliḥ! Al-Rashīd took it hard and began cursing Ibn Bahla and Indian medicine. Then early in the morning he went to Ibrāhīm's house. Ibn Bahla came and stood before him, but he did not speak to him until the scent of the censers rose, Ibrāhīm having been washed and shrouded. At that, Ibn Bahla cried out to him: "Commander of the Faithful! By God, by God, do not rule against me that my wife be divorced and I be stripped of my fortune, and bury your cousin alive, for by God he is not dead!" So he permitted him to go in to him and look at him. Then he came out crying "God is greatest," and said: "Rise, Commander of the Faithful, so that I may show you a wonder."

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So he rose and went with him. Then Ibn Bahla took out a needle he had with him and inserted it between the nail of the thumb of

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Ibrāhīm's left hand and the flesh, and Ibrāhīm pulled his hand back! Ibn Bahla said: "Commander of the Faithful! Does a dead man feel pain?" He said to him: "No." Ibn Bahla said: "If I wished to make him speak to the Commander of the Faithful this very hour, I would do so. But I fear that if I treat him and he comes to while in a shroud bearing the smell of embalming spices, his heart will break and he will die a real death. Rather, let the Commander of the Faithful order that he be stripped of the shroud, taken back to the washing place, and washed again until the smell of the embalming spices leaves him; then let him be dressed in clothes like those he used to wear, and moved to one of the beds he used to sit on, so that I may treat him, and he will speak to him at once."

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He ordered this, and it was done. Then Ibn Bahla called for kundus (sneezewort) and a blowpipe, and blew the kundus into his nose. He remained about a sixth of an hour; then his body stirred and he sneezed, sat up before al-Rashīd, and kissed his hand. Al-Rashīd asked him how he was, and he said that he had been asleep, a sleep so pleasant that he could not recall ever having slept the like, except that he had seen in his dream a dog biting the thumb of his left hand, a bite whose pain he still felt; and he showed him his thumb into which the needle had been inserted. He lived a long time after that, then married al-ʿAbbāsa daughter of al-Mahdī, was made governor of Egypt and Palestine, and died in Egypt and was buried there.

Linked texts (1)

مسالك الأبصار في ممالك الأمصار — Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʿUmarī, Arabic