The Physicians and Their Encounter with Western Medicine

Abstract

With the exception of a few outstanding physicians who flourished under the Timurids and the Safavids, such as Bahâ al-Dowleh(d.1506) and‘Emâd al-Din Mahmud-e Shirâzi (sixteenth century), Iran had no significant medical authority in contrast to the so-called Golden Age, from the eighth to the fourteenth century.1 This was to some extent caused by the general sociopolitical dislocation following the Mongol invasion and the decentralization of power across the Islamic world. In Persia, this situation continued until Shah‘Abbas I Safavid (1571–1629) created a strong central state. Under the Safavids, however, increasing number of Persian physicians emigrated to India for various reasons, including internal conflicts, religious intolerance and/or more lucrative income at the Mughal courts.2 In India, they encountered not only Ayurveda and other Indian systems but also Western medicine.3 Hakim‘Alavi Khan was one of these physicians. He first traveled from Shirâz to India in 1699. When Nâder Shah invaded India in 1738, he took‘Alavi Khan with him. Still later, ‘Alavi Khan left Iran for Hejâz under the pretext of making a pilgrimage to Mecca, but in 1743 he returned to Delhi, where he died in 1747 and was buried in the mausoleum of Nezâm al-Din, one of the Sufi saints.4