Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi

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Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi (d. 994), also known as Masoudi, or in Latin as Ali Abbas or Haly Abbas, was a Persian physician most famous for the al-Maliki, his textbook of medicine.

He was born in Ahwaz, southwestern Persia, and studied under Shaikh Abu Maher Musa ibn Sayyār. He was considered one of the three greatest physicians of the Eastern Caliphate of his time, and became physician to Emir Adhad al-dowleh Fana Khusraw of the Buwayhid dynasty, who ruled from 949 CE to 983 CE. The Emir was a great patron of medicine, and founded a hospital at Shiraz in Persia, and in 981 the Al-Adudi Hospital in Baghdad, where al-Magusi worked.

Al-Majusi is best known for his Kitab Kamil as-sina'a at-tibbiyya ("Complete Book of the Medical Art"), which he completed in about 980. He dedicated the work to the Emir, and it became known as the Kitab al-Maliki ("Royal book", or in Latin Liber regalis, or Regalis dispositio). The book is a more systematic and concise encyclopedia than Razi's Hawi, but more practical than Avicenna's Canon of Medicine, by which it was superseded.

The Maliki is divided into 20 discourses, of which the first ten deal with theory and the second ten with the practice of medicine. Some examples of topics covered are dietetics and materia medica, a rudimentary conception of the capillary system, interesting clinical observations, and proof of the motions of the womb during parturition (e.g. the child does not come out; it is pushed out). In Europe a partial translation was adapted as the Liber pantegni by Constantinus Africanus (c. 1087), which became a founding text of the Schola Medica Salernitana in Salerno. A complete and much better translation was made in 1127 by Stephen of Antioch, and this was printed in Venice in 1492 and 1523.

Sources

• Lutz Richter-Bernburg, "‘Ali b. ‘Abbas Majusi", in Encyclopedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, 6+ vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul and Costa Mesa: Mazda, 1983 to present), vol. 1, pp. 837-8
• Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, Handbuch der Orientalistik, Abteilung I, Erg?nzungsband vi, Abschnitt 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), pp. 140-146
• Fuat Sezgin, Medizin-Pharmazie-Zoologie-Tierheilkunde bis ca 430 H., Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Band 3 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), pp. 320-322
• Manfred Ullmann, Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978, reprinted 1997), pp. 55-85.
• Wustenfeld: Geschichte der arabischen Aerzte (59, 1840).
• Edward G. Browne, Islamic Medicine, 2002, p.53-54, ISBN 81-87570-19-9
• Charles S. F. Burnett, Danielle Jacquart (eds.), Constantine the African and ʻAlī Ibn Al-ʻAbbās Al-Magūsī: The Pantegni and Related Texts. Leiden: Brill, 1995. ISBN 9004100148
• Shoja MM, Tubbs RS. The history of anatomy in Persia. J Anat 2007; 210:359–378.

See also

• List of Iranian scientists
• Islamic medicine