Gary Leiser and Noury Al-Khaledy (eds and transl.), Questions and answers for physicians: a medieval Arabic study manual by ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Sulami, Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Studies, vol. 3, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2004, pp. xii, 250, €59.00, US$74.00 (hardback 90-04-13671-1).

Abstract

Gary Leiser presents in Questions and answers for physicians an edition of the Arabic text of the Imtiḥān al-alibbā’ li-kāffat al-aṭibbā' (‘The Experts' Examination for all Physicians’) by ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Sulamī (ca. 1155–1208) together with an English translation, a preface and an introduction. The latter is based on an earlier article by Leiser and the late Noury al-Khaledy published in 1987. Sulamī's text is divided into ten chapters, each containing twenty questions about a particular field of medicine (i.e. “On the pulse”, “On simple drugs”, “On what a surgeon should be asked”). In the corresponding answers the author usually quotes from one of the well-known sources of Arabic medicine like Galen, Ibn Sīnā and ‘Alī ibn ‘Abbās al-Majūsī. In his introduction Leiser mentions the most important of these sources (p. 10) and gives additional information in the footnotes to the translation. The quotations are usually not literal, but paraphrases, and it is regrettable that Leiser does not explore the relation between the sources and the Imtiḥān in detail. How Sulamī proceeded in selecting and using them remains therefore unclear. One of the most crucial questions concerning the Imtiḥān is its purpose. Leiser explains at the beginning of his introduction, that “examinations were sometimes given to determine a physician's qualifications” and that the Imtiḥān was such an examination (p. 1), yet at a later point he doubts that it was a real examination (p. 10). Leiser argues that it clearly falls into the genre of “questions and answers” (masā'il wa-ajwiba), a popular form for Arabic treatises on various subjects for didactical purposes. This conflicts with Leiser's earlier statement in the preface that he “had discovered no other work quite like” the Imtiḥān (p. ix). Moreover, he refers to Hans Daiber's article on the genre in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, yet fails to take into consideration a more recent publication by the same author which deals with Ibn al-‘Amīd's answers to the Buyid king ‘Aḍudaddawla (Die Naturwissenschaft bei den Arabern im 10. Jahrhundert n. Chr., Leiden, 1993) and would have provided a good opportunity to contextualize the Imtiḥān within the “questions and answers” genre. Leiser narrows the various possibilities of a didactic purpose of such texts somewhat unconvincingly down to two alternatives: self-taught physicians and physicians who studied with a master (p. 11). There is, however, at least a third option: that a student revises knowledge acquired from a teacher. Another interesting aspect which Leiser raises in his introduction is Sulamī's involvement in Ayyubid politics. Sulamī was appointed ra’īs al-ṭibb (literally “chief of medicine”) for Egypt by the Ayyubid Sultan al-‘Ādil and dedicated the Imtiḥān to al-‘Ādil's vizier, al-ṣāḥib. Unfortunately, Leiser does not expound on the potential duties of this office and what they might imply for the Imtiḥān and its purpose. If Leiser is right in suggesting that al-Ṣāḥib encouraged Sulamī to write the Imtiḥān, and that the latter endeavoured to improve the medical standard in Egypt, one should reconsider the question of a practical use of this text. Leiser's rather brief remarks on Sulamī's relation with the Ayyubids reveal another flaw of the book: the relative disregard of studies published after Leiser's and al-Khaledy's article of 1987. For generations, members of Sulamī's family were appointed as madrasa professors in Damascus, yet Leiser fails to refer to the thorough studies by Louis Pouzet (‘Les madrasas de Damas et leurs professeurs durant le VII/XIIIeme siecle’, Melanges de l'Universite Saint-Joseph [1991/2], 52: 121–96, and Damas au VIIe/XIIIe siecle, Beirut, 1988). These problems of the introduction notwithstanding, Leiser has presented a text which allows important insights into diverse aspects of medicine in Ayyubid Egypt.