Abà « 'l-Ḥasan al-MuḫtÃÂr YuwÃÂnnës ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ÿAbdà «n ibn Saÿdà «n ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn ( ; â 8 à  auwÃÂl 458 AH or 2 September 1066), commonly known as Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn ( ), was an Arab physician and Nestorian Christian theologian. Born in Baghdad, the erstwhile capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate, he travelled throughout Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Anatolia, during which time he practiced medicine, studied, wrote, and engaged in intellectual debatesâÂÂmost famously the Battle of the Physicians with the Egyptian polymath Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn. In 1054, he was in Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, where he witnessed first-hand the EastâÂÂWest Schism among Christendom, contributing a work to the discussions surrounding it for Michael I Cerularius, who was serving as the Patriarch of Constantinople. After his time in Constantinople, Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn remained in the Byzantine Empire and eventually became a monk for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch amidst the end of the Macedonian Renaissance.
He is most renowned for his work Taqwëm aá¹£-á¹¢iḥḥa ( , ), a handbook on dietetics and hygiene. It was named for its intricate tables, similar to those found within a (, ), a type of astrological almanac. He was the first person to use these tables in a non-astrological work, creating a new scientific writing format that may be seen as the main influence for works like by the Arab physician Ibn æazla and by the Kurdish geographer and historian Abà « 'l-FidÃÂþ. Translations of Taqwëm aá¹£-á¹¢iḥḥa into Latin are preserved in many manuscripts from the early modern period, and are thought to illustrate the relationship between medieval Europe and the Arab world in the field of medicine. Despite increased European contact with Egypt and Syria through the Crusades and trade into the 16th century, there are no Latin translations of Arabic medical texts after Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's era.
Although he lived during a period when non-MuslimsâÂÂthe so-called People of the Pact, who were originally Jews, Christians, and SabiansâÂÂdominated the medical profession in the Arab world, Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn is noteworthy for being one of only a few non-Muslim physicians from the region about whom enough is known to paint a detailed biography. Documents like the Cairo Geniza, a collection of Jewish manuscript fragments, provide scientific records about the medical practices of such physicians, but lack reliable information outside of that to create detailed biographies about them and to describe their perception and role within society, thus proving Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn as an important exception.
Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn was the favourite student of ibn al-Ṭayyib, a Church of the East leader, priest, and polymath, at al-ÿAá¸Âudë Hospital. He taught him about philosophy and medicine. He instructed him in the works of Galen, Aristotle, and Hippocrates â additionally in those of Porphyry, Themistius, Pedanius Dioscorides, and more contemporary Arab physicians like ibn al-KhammÃÂr, Ibn Zurÿa, and Ḥunayn ibn IsḥÃÂq. He also was educated about practical medical procedures in line with a new experimentation-based medical learning approach proposed by Persian physician Abu Bakr al-Razi. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn studied in the al-Karḫ district of Baghdad, in which many Christians lived and also received an ecclesial education from his teacher, who is considered the most important exegete of Christian Arabic literature. He became a priest, taking up the name upon his ordination. It is claimed by al-Qifá¹Âë and by Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa that he also was a student of Abà « 'l-Ḥasan al-ḤarrÃÂnë, a Sabian physician and translator. Schacht and Meyerhof however find this claim doubtful as they argue he had been deceased prior to Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's birth, though in his own Essay on Hot and Cold Remedies Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn states to have been in the presence of al-ḤarrÃÂnë in Baghdad.
Schacht and Meyerhof, as well as Conrad, claim he knew Greek based on his Christian upbringing. However Graf proves in his translation of the Essay on the Holy Eucharist that he did not know Greek, as Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn states so himself. However Ibn aá¹Â-Ṭaiyib taught him about the writers of Greek literary classics, such as Homer. Schacht and Meyerhof, as well as Conrad, also claim that he knew Syriac based on his upbringing, while the only surviving texts of his are written in Arabic, he did address Syriac medical learning and Syriac places of learning in the Compendium for the Monasteries and the Monks. It should also be noted that a major difference between him and his teacher's generation of Christian physicians in Baghdad â in many ways even between him and his own generation â is his turn away from Syriac literature to embracing Arabic literature. He showed great interest in Arabic poetry and pursued an education therein. He himself became a teacher of medicine and philosophy before leaving Baghdad in the beginning of Ramaá¸ÂÃÂn 440 AH/January 1049 AD.
His travels began with a 10-month-long journey to al-Fusá¹ÂÃÂá¹Â, an hour's walk south from the newly established Fatimid capital of Cairo. According to Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa he travelled to meet Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn, a prominent medical writer and chief physician of the Fatimid caliph al-Mustaná¹£ir bi-'llÃÂh. Schacht and Meyerhof suggest that instead he sought employment at the court of said caliph, who held high opinions of non-Muslim physicians. According to Conrad Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's comments about the young physician's motivations to move away from Baghdad in The Physicians' Banquet, are to be understood quasi-autobiographically. Meaning that high costs of living in his hometown caused him to want to live in a more affordable city. In addition to this, there appears to have been a lack of professional opportunities in Baghdad for him.
He travelled via the Nahr ÿêsàCanal to al-Anbar and from there to ar-Raḥba during the first 19 days of his travels. He describes ar-Raḥba as a quaint town offering a grand variety of fruits, for example 19 different kinds of grapes alone. From there it took him four days to travel to ar-Reá¹£afa. There he visited its castle, which was used as a caravanserai. He describes it as being very large in size, yet smaller than the Caliph's palace in Baghdad. He described the outsides of the basilica located within the castle as being covered in golden mosaics, the basilica as having been built on a cistern in the ground as large as the above ground building itself. He writes about the inhabitants of the castle, who were Christian bedouins earning their keep by guarding caravans and trading goods. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn comments about this arrangement that these beduins are "both beggars and robbers at once". He claims the basilica to have been founded by Constantine I and once restored and inhabited by Hià ¡ÃÂm ibn ÿAbd al-Malik.
Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's journey from ar-Reá¹£afa to Aleppo took four days. He remained in Aleppo for a longer period of time. His departure from Aleppo to travel to Antioch had him visit the Byzantine village of ÿImm. After visiting Antioch he travelled to Laodicea from there he proceeded to Damascus, then Jaffa, and finally arrived in al-Fusá¹ÂÃÂá¹ in æumÃÂdàII 441 AH/November 1049 AD.
While in Aleppo, which he reached after 27 days, he gained the graces of Muÿizz ad-Daula á¹®imÃÂl ibn á¹¢ÃÂliḥ, the emir of the city, and set up a medical practice there.
The impression he left in northern Syria was so great that he became a notable figure in the local oral canon, three of these stories were recorded by UsÃÂma ibn MunqiḠin his Kitab al-IÿtibÃÂr. In these stories, ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn is a medical sage operating out of a shop and has a son and students; he cures a man who had lost the ability to speak with a raá¹Âl (in Aleppo during this time a 3/4th litre) of vinegar, which is claimed to kill a man under normal circumstances by the ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn of the narrative. In the second story, he explains that UsÃÂma's grandfather, who is presumed to suffer from leprosy, is not ill, but simply suffers from skin irritations caused by adolescence, which will disappear upon him reaching adulthood. He warns of greedy medical quacks offering to cure him. In the third story, a woman who wears many veils because she persistently feels too hot is cured using camphor.
What is remarkable about these stories is that they appear to be fictional except for the personal anecdote from UsÃÂma's own family. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn left Baghdad destitute and most certainly would not have travelled with dependants, and he was not long enough in Aleppo to be born a son there. Medicine at that time would not have been practiced out of a shop () but the physician's home. A raá¹Âl of vinegar is not deadly and the anatomy in the stories is based on medical misconceptions which ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn did not hold. Hence his son and students are inventions to fit the motif of the medical sage curing difficult cases with superior medical knowledge, which in all likelihood means that his kunya (lit. "father of al-Ḥasan) does not refer to a real son of his.
This is also backed up by ibn Abë Uá¹£aybiÿa, who quotes him lamenting having to die without any offspring or ever having taken a wife with a line from one of Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's poems: <blockquote> </blockquote>
Another such legend is told by Abu Dharr al-Harawi. In his account, he relays that ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn is said to have founded the hospital in Aleppo. To determine the best location, he hung up meat to check for air quality; where meat decayed the slowest and was the least discoloured. He begins his account with the cautionary phrase "qëla" (). This speaks to his skills in verifying oral tradition, as he does not use this phrase in the previous account in which he tells of ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn founding the hospital in Antioch. This legend is relevant in so far as it is a variation of another medical sage-type legend told about al-Razë and al-ÿAá¸Âudë Hospital, describing the same method, further associating ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn with the motif.
Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn approached the amir, , who had seized the city shortly before Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's arrival, to be entrusted with the regulation of Christian worship in Aleppo. This request was granted. Klein-Franke elucidates that Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn as a student of ibn al-Ṭayyib was likely influenced by his work Law of Christianity () a Church of the East treatise on jurisprudential and administrative matters containing an extensive collection of canon law to try and apply the laws and principles identified by his teacher in this community, which included extensive deliberations over marital and inheritance law.
While Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn himself was, at that time, a member of the Church of the East, the Christian community in Aleppo consisted largely of Syriac Orthodox Armenians. In his narration. al-Qifá¹Âë simply states, "and he began to enforce religious regulations according to their principles and provisions"; this both implies that he began to change things and that ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's Eastern faith and that of a Monophysite community adhere to the same beliefs, which was not the case since the Council of Chalcedon. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn would go on to condemn Monophysite beliefs in his work The Physicians' Banquet, a possible reason for the Aleppine Armenian community's staunch dislike for him long after his stay.
Likely due to these differences, conflict ensued, which culminated in a public dispute between ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn and (), a physician and secretary. The two met each other and struck a conversation which turned onto the subject of dialectics. Ibn à  arÃÂra possessed no knowledge of this subject, while ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn was very well educated therein. This led to ibn à  arÃÂra being publicly humiliated. He consequently began to vilify ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn and instigated further agitation against him in the already oppositional Aleppine Christian community. This caused ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn to leave Aleppo early. It is likely for this reason that al-Qifá¹Âë reports "and he did not find anything pleasant to say about [Aleppo] and left".
Unlike in the rest of northern Syria, his legacy in the Christian community of Aleppo was not a positive one of a legendary medical sage; instead, its members recited offensive poems about him. After his death began telling a tale that each time the lamp above his tomb in Antioch was lit, it went out instantly, implying ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's grave itself to be cursed.
After leaving Aleppo he arrived in Antioch within two days. He does not acknowledge it being under Byzantine rule at that time in any way. The ongoing geopolitical and religious conflicts and wars between Byzantines, FÃÂá¹Âimids, MirdÃÂsids and MarwÃÂnids encountered during his travels generally remain unmentioned in his writings â attesting as Klein-Franke remarks a notable freedom of movement, despite ongoing conflicts. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn gained favour with rulers of many backgrounds and travelled across borders with no recorded difficulties doing so. He described Antioch in great detail and spoke favourably of the city. He may have had a personal relationship to Antioch and might have received a warm initial welcoming due to his teacher Ibn aá¹Â-Ṭaiyib being born there according to Ibn al-ÿAdëm; however Ibn al-ÿAdëm is the only source for this claim, with most other sources assuming he was born in the land of the Iraq.
Near Antioch Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn visited the Monastery of Symeon the Younger, the size and fortune of which impressed him greatly. From there he travelled to al-LÃÂá¸Âiqëa (Laodicea), where he conversed with Christian monks and hermits, the wisdom and insight of whom he lauded. In his descriptions he implies that the hippodrome and amphitheater were still used and that the former pagan temple of the city, which had once been converted into a mosque was now a church. He also commented on the ringing of the bells by Christians to interrupt the city's muezzin's aá¸ÂÃÂn, Conrad interprets his description to be disapproving of this behaviour by the Christian community. He also took keen interest in the agoranomos (he calls him ) whose duties included inspecting the prostitutes of the city and facilitating their transactions. This process consisted of gathering of all the women and the foreigners, likely meaning their procurers not their clients, and inspecting the women. Following this occurred the auction, a means of taxation, during which procurers bid against each other in dirham. Bidding more based on the women's expected profitability for the night. The winner was given the stamp of the metropolitan and would take the woman to his brothel where she would receive clients. The wÃÂlë likely being something akin to a police officer would go around at night inspecting the brothels and criminally charge, possibly with fraud, the procurers who operated without a stamp. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn uses morally condemning and highly disapproving language when describing this process.
He After al-LÃÂá¸Âiqëya he visited Damascus, where a large debate had been taking place. Subject of this debate was an old conundrum of Greek natural science, discussed in the problemata literature inherited by the Arab world: Which is warmer the young of the bird or the young chick? At the core of the question lies Aristotle's teaching about the relation of warmth and movement, that is the quicker something moves the warmer it is; the young chicken can peck on its own, the young bird must remain in its nest, but chickens as a whole move less quickly than birds who can fly. An otherwise unknown author by the name of had started this debate by arguing in favour of the young chicken. A Jacobite Christian physician called had responded to al-Muwaffaqë arguing that the young of the bird was warmer than the chick. Though al-Yabrà «dë had passed very shortly before Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn entered Damascus, the debate was still ongoing and Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn was convinced of al-Yabrà «dë's position though entirely unconvinced by his reasoning. This seemingly innocuous debate would be of great consequence to Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's life.
Upon his arrival in al-Fusá¹ÂÃÂá¹ Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn came to visit the palace of æauahr ibn MÃÂá¸Âë. Conrad (understanding the Physicians' Banquet<nowiki/>'s comments about the arrival of the young physician in MÃÂiyafÃÂriqën to be allegorical for Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's experiences in Egypt) and Kennedy (reading the work only as partly allegorical) both claim Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn was warmly received at the court and praised by its chief physician, Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn had been writing missives to HilÃÂl aá¹£-á¹¢abi of Baghdad throughout his travels, these spanned a wide range of topics such as medicine and geography. Once in Egypt he began working on his notes and writings compiled during his trip in this process of writing missives, which caused him to have an excellent reputation and left Egyptian intellectuals excitedly awaiting the publishing of his finished work. Though he never finished this work, a book extensively compiled from his missives after his death called KitÃÂb ar-Rabëÿ proved useful to other scholars. Conrad suggests, based on his allegorical reading of the Physicians' Banquet that Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn continued being of some help to Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn, introducing him to prominent medical practitioners of the city. And yet this satirical text also makes the defamatory suggestion all decent and educated persons of the city despised, the old physician, whom Conrad understands to be Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn. That these persons saw him as a self-important fraud with no interest in the serious questions of medical profession, though this passage was written long after their dispute had occurred.
Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn was the son of poor baker from Giza, his parents died young he therefore had no inheritance to fund his studies with, thus he became a roadside fortuneteller to fund his education. He had his break when he was able to substitute for a friend of his who worked as a physician and began to pursue medicine with much determination; he ended up gaining a position as the chief physician of the court, being the successor to , in addition to amassing a large number of students, a large personal medical library in an addition to a monetary fortune stemming from his real estate investments in the city. He therefore guarded his position in manner which was perceived as aggressive and polemicising. He also worked against the perception of having been, what the medical community of that time considered, a charlatan prior to a physician. This attitude might not solely have been the result of an irritable temperament; the nature of professional medicine in the Arab world at the time was entirely dependent on one's patrons and social standing in a city, in the absence of medical boards and standardised systems to ensure medical knowledge of practitioners. Self-learning was equally regarded as a source of education compared to learning from a teacher at an institution, therefore social standing and one's reputation were the primary basis of a successful career in medicine. Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn was described by Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn as a man with a fondness for "futile uproar". He attacked many of his colleagues with barrages of personal insults without having interacted much with them prior. One such public outburst had been targeted at Ibn aá¹Â-Ṭaiyib, a later one at Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn. It occurred in response to Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's attempt to improve his reputation among the educated upper class of Cairo with the assumed intention of gaining a maecenas. Encouraged by an unnamed wazir of the court Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's sent the open essay On Objections, against those who said that the Chick is Warmer than the Young of the [Flying] Bird, using the Manner of Rationality to Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn expecting his endorsement. This subject would have been of much interest in Cairo at the time as the city had a large poultry industry, known for its well documented widespread use of artificial egg incubation in so called "laying-hen factories". Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn did not know that al-Yabrà «dë, the man whose reasoning and knowledge of the ancients was described as insufficient and unconvincing by the essay, had been a personal friend of Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn. Additionally Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn once wanted to become a student of Ibn aá¹Â-Ṭaiyib himself, but could not afford the travel to Baghdad. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn also wrote in this first essay that al-Yabrà «dë had been in communication with other Egyptian physicians â something which Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa also records â and he mentions that in the introduction to his work that education is "almost a burden in Egypt, a country in which it is hard to gain equal footing with the ignorant/foolish".
According to Conrad this led combination of factors:
Which in their totality led Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn's response Discourse of the Sheikh Abà « 'l-Ḥasan ÿAlë Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn Explaining the Mistakes in the Sayings of al-MuḫtÃÂr Ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn ÿAbdà «n of Baghdad to be scathing. The tone of this work and all later works in the conflict between the two are very harsh and insulting in their language and often filled with personal insults. According to Conrad Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn would later portray Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn's attitude in this response as that of the stingy dinner party host who rages at guests eating scraps during his sleep. Conrad also suggests that Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa claims there also were physical altercation between the two as well presumably based on his reading of The Physicians' Banquet and in Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa's article.
Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn responded reciprocally with another essay to Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn's response which he called the Egyptian Essay. In the first chapter of this treatise he advances seven reasons as to why in-person learning from a mentor is preferable to learning from books alone. Among these are that teacher is able to correct inaccurate interpolation from manuscripts, explain difficult sections, and correct mistakes made by the student. He explain this with instructor and student being homogenous in their natures making transmission of knowledge easy. Contrarily he argues that as book and student are heterogenous in nature and hence transmission between the two is difficult. In the second chapter he argues that learning exclusively from books introduces a circulus vitiosus, as incorrect information becomes the lens through which all new acquired knowledge is filtered, which then creates a feedback loop, tainting all further learning from books. Though many of Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's arguments are observed to be reasonable ones on their face and eloquently stated by commentators, they all primarily serve to discredit Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn: by attacking his humble background and a previously advanced position of his that learning from books is superior to learning from teachers.
This was a slight which Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn observed and polemicised against in his response Discourse of the Sheikh Abà « 'l-Ḥasan ÿAlë Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn on the Fact that his Own Knowledge is True and is Wisdom and that the Opinions of MuḫtÃÂr Ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn of Baghdad are Faulty and are Sophistry. Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn would conclude their feud with another work, the Missive of the Sheikh Abà « 'l-Ḥasan ÿAlë Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn Addressed to the Physicians of Old Cairo (Miá¹£r) and the (New) Cairo of al-Muÿizz may AllÃÂh the Most High Protect it â in which he complains about his condition and what has happened between himself and the learned al-MuḫtÃÂr ibn al-Ḥasan of Baghdad, the physician. Addressed to the medical community of Egypt this relatively short work gives a brief portrayal of the conflict as concerned with matters of learning about Hippocrates and Galen, claiming that Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn himself is correct about all points and Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn is a fraud whose statements are to be taken as jokes and advising against any cooperation with him. This last missive appears to have been successful in ruining any prospects of Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn in Egypt, as he left the country after having remained there for a year. Some scholars claim that Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn would give his view of events though long after having left Egypt in a satirical work they identify as quasi-autobiographical, The Physicians' Banquet.
Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa in his biographies of Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn and Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn seems to regard this conflict mostly as a matter of personal animus between the two but comments in Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's biography that the many anecdotes of the two insulting each other are entertaining but not without useful lessons, he judges Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn to be more eloquent and Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn to be the better physician and better educated. Schacht and Meyerhof see the origins of the conflict as personal in nature but its dimensions as helpful in illustrating the reception of Greek and Syriac texts in the Arab world. In this they largely follow Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn's last portrayal of the debate as a matter concerned with the philosophy of medicine and the reception of the ancients. They conclude Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn to be better educated in a broader variety of fields and to contribute more original ideas in his thinking, incorporating newer approaches like those of ar-Razë. While Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn wrote more, they judge his output to be unoriginal and intellectually stagnant. Conrad disagrees with Schacht and Meyerhof's perspective and views it as a struggle for affirmation in the medical community of Egypt largely fuelled by personal dislike between two men with large egos but insightful in illustrating the complex social arrangements needed to be a successful physician in a society without institutionalised systems verifying medical learning.
Schoeler places importance on the arguments advanced by Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn against book learning in the Egyptian Essay, identifying four novel arguments advanced by him. These he sees as based in the language and concepts of Ancient Greek philosophy. Additionally he identifies two as taken directly from the Islamic study of aḥÃÂdëth, thereby proving the genetic influence on the development of the medical sciences and philosophy practiced by non-Muslims in the Islamicate world.
His name being ruined in Egypt due to the Battle of the Physicians Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn travelled to Syria via Jaffa in 442 AH/1050 AD. There he remarked the high child mortality of the city and the lack of a teacher for the city's boys. From there he went on to Antioch, Abà « Dharr al-Harauë suggests he spent time in both Antioch and Aleppo during this period. In his Essay on Hot and Cold Remedies from 455 AH/1063 AD Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn however cites "master teachers of the city" on living conditions and other rudimentary information like the weather and housing conditions, this according to Conrad might suggest that Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn did not return to the city due to his ruined reputation from his previous squabble there, rather relying on colleagues for information. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn personally reports on the Church of al-QusyÃÂn and its administration. The church had been struck by lightning during a storm in April 1050 AD and required repairs. On the 5th of August that year he reports about a number of earth quakes which had occurred in Byzantine territory, destroying a fortress and a church, numerous farms, and bringing forth hot springs and a swamp, causing the inhabitants of the affected places to lose all their belongings and flee to cities like Antioch. From Antioch headed to Ṭarsà «s, where he reported on the tomb of al-Maþmà «n which had fallen into disrepair.
From there he travelled to Constantinople to join a monastery there, during this journey he wrote the Essay on the Holy Eucharist at the behalf of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael I Cerularius. The fact that he was invited by such an important figure of Eastern Christianity to elucidate the Oriental perspective on the debates leading to the Schism of 1054, demonstrates that his outstanding reputation was not limited to Islamic circles in the Fatimid and Abbasid caliphates but extended also into the Christian world. This is becomes furthermore evident when looking at Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's interaction with the wazir on a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine capital on behalf of the ÿUqailid Emir . Faḫr ad-Daula remarked how warmly received and cared for he was by Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn and also how much access his host had to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos. This must have occurred prior to 443 AH/1052 AD given the Emir's short reign. In the year 446 AH/1054 AD Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn observed a plague in Constantinople in which 14,000 bodies were buried in the cemetery of the church St. Luke, after all other burial grounds were filled. According to Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa he authored The Physicians' Banquet in the monastery in Constantiople, but Kennedy speculates that most of the work was written prior to his departure from Egypt. He dedicated the work to the Marwanid Emir Naá¹£r ad-Daula Abà « Naá¹£r AḥmÃÂd ibn MarwÃÂn the ruler of MÃÂiyafÃÂriqën in the province of DiyÃÂr Bakr. He visited the city and met Abà « Yaḥyàthe son of Abà « 'l-Qasim al-Ḥusain ibn ÿAlë al-Maáribë, though he likely visited after having finished the work. When exactly he visited the city is unclear, though Conrad suggests that it might have initially been on his journey to Constantinople, returning for a second time later to present The Physicians' Banquet. In the treatise itself he comments on the low level of medical knowledge in the town, though as some scholars regard the work as allegorical for his experiences in Cairo this might not be considered a neutral report.
Having seemingly hastily finished the Essay on the Holy Eucharist and not being able to speak Greek Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn relied on an interpreter, named ÿêsa, provided by the Patriarch to have his arguments communicated in Greek at the synod of Byzantine prelates, first in private to Cerularius, then publicly to all present, with a later reading to the papal delegates at the synod being planned but never occurring due to the papal delegates never showing up with the synod eventually being dissolved. Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's involvement with the Patriarch of Constantinople and his stay in a monastery in Constantinople raise the question of his religious affiliation: his background and education in Baghdad, the episode involving Aleppo's Christian community, and the Essay on the Holy Eucharist themselves provide strong evidence that ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn at least up to this point was an Eastern Christian of the East Syriac Rite, as Conrad however points out, there are indicators, that he "was fairly undifferentiated" in his understanding of his Christian identity with cautious distance to all different denominations. Oltean examines this issue further, looking at Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's contacts and friendships, beginning with , a chief judge of Antioch, , a Melkite physician in Antioch, , an Antiochian priest, possibly , a famed theologian and translator, in addition to Symeon Seth and Michael Psellos. Further supporting Oltean's hypothesis about Seth's friendship and intellectual camaraderie is Pietrobelli and Cronier's hypothesis of a relationship between Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn and Symeon Seth based not simply on time and place alone but also based on their intellectual output. Namely, Seth's uncredited reception of Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's Taqwëm aá¹£-á¹¢iḥḥa in form of a partial translation in his work On the Handbook of Health by the Balance of the Six Causes. Hence they argue the historical and textual evidence makes the polymath Seth a likely student of the physician Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn during the 1060s and possibly before. Mavroudi also hypothesizes a possible relationship between Michael Psellos and Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn, whom she firmly situates within the Eastern Christian tradition likening the use of men who from the Eastern Orthodox perspective are heretics to Psellos' use of pagan authors in this same debate.
Oltean unlike other scholars does not highlight isolated relationships of ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn, but rather identifies an entire intellectual circle to in Byzantine territory to which Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn belonged. He sees that Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's approach in his essay, which seems to focus on reconciliation between the two conflicting sides, echoes the position of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Peter III of Antioch. Which ties him, as the key figure, into this intellectual circle as well. Graf also argues that Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's treatise is not original, but rather an echo of Greek polemics particularly those of Peter III of Antioch and of Cerularius himself. His reason for this is the argument that there was no serious discussion or standardised practice regarding which offering is to be employed during the Holy Eucharist in the Greek, Syriac, and Coptic churches prior Cerularius bringing up the issue and Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn being the first Oriental Christian to dogmatically comment on the issue, there were no other sources Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn could have consulted. It is only in sections on the dogmatic categorisation of Eucharist and sections mentioning certain cultic practices during the Eucharist and the reason for their existence that Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn departs from echoing Greek perspectives on the issue and argues truly from an Eastern perspective. On these issues Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn isn't the first Oriental Christian exegete and the primary source for his arguments is his teacher Ibn aá¹Â-Ṭaiyib, though Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn seems to argue more rigidly and certain of his beliefs than his teacher. After his time in Constantinople he returned to Antioch. Where he would spend his last years in a monastery, writing and constructing the hospital. In this context he would pen the Compendium for the Monasteries and the Monks, which in its last two chapters display great knowledge of and concern for the monastical life and the common needs arising therein. His good connections in Antioch and possible friendship with the Peter III certainly would explain the choice of location. Oltean argues based on the lack of a Church of the East presence in Antioch and the troubled state of the Jacobite Armenian Monophysite community in the city and his mockery of their creed in the Banquet of the Priests, that he must have joined a Melkite monastery there. Based on Oltean's research the most likely choice for this monastery appears to be the Monastery of Symeon the Younger, which Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn had praised earlier during his travels. In this context he likely even met Nikon of the Black Mountain and played a role in his possible emission to Baghdad. Though the lack of more concrete sources for this later part of his life make many of these conclusions speculative.
A large supernova named SN 1054 in modern astronomy occurred in the year 1054 AD/446 AH. It was well observed by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in their writings, the great detail of which allowed for it to be identified as the origin of the Crab Nebula in the modern day. But modern astronomers were puzzled by the lack of European and Middle Eastern reports of the event. This lack of recordings was used by George Sarton to suggest that "the failure of medieval Europeans and Arabs to recognise such phenomena was not due to any difficulty in seeing them, but to prejudice and spiritual inertia connected with the groundless belief in celestial perfection". Other researchers hypothesised the skies in the Middle East and Europe had been entirely clouded for six months during the occurrence of the supernova.
The discovery and interpretation of Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa's writings on Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn by the astrophysicist Kenneth Brecher in 1978 led to a reconsideration of such positions and consequently to the discovery of medieval Arab medical sources as useful to modern astronomers, as these records did suggest Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn had, in fact, recorded SN 1054. He believed the event to be connected to a low water level of the Nile and a consequent famine decimating much of Egypt, as well as multiple devastating epidemics throughout Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Iraq, Persia, and the Yemen.
Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn was not a professional astronomer nor an astrologer, rather he was a physician operating according to the tradition of Galen and Hippocrates both of whom believed in a connection between cosmic and telluric events, illness and natural catastrophes. The separation between astrologers and physicians however remains clear in these Greek texts, but this separation of functions went away in the reception of the Greeks by medieval Arabs and Persians. Hence Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn observed the stars with the intent of gaining knowledge of medical importance like many of his contemporary physicians. While he engages in astronomy, he does not express any confidence in this science, in fact in matters were astrological and physiological or pathological insight collide, the latter two always prevail in his analyses, something which also representative of the attitudes of most of his contemporaries. Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa by quoting Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn in the encyclopaedic entry about him (as well as in the entry about Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn) preserved enough information to identify the supernova. As the former quotation introduces problems in determining the dates of the event with when Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn supposedly observed it, while the latter reveals these problems to be due to an error made by Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa in quoting from Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn the former passage:
Though he connects his observations to predictions by Ptolemy about a comet, what is termed in this report a 'star leaving marks' is, in fact, a supernova and the terminology used resembles that used by Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn when he described the supernova SN 1006. This supernova was witnessed by Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn in April and May 1006 AD/Raçab of 396 AH, termed by him to have been during "at the beginning of my studies". Of the two dates given for the supernova's appearance in this quoted account: 445 and 446 AH, one must be false. Thus the before-mentioned second encyclopaedic entry about Ibn Riá¸ÂwÃÂn by Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa is helpful in making apparent Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa's erroneous date in the second paragraph of the first quotation, as in this second quotation Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn is quoted about a shortage of supplies in Egypt in 445 AH which he says was increased when the Nile fell 'in the year which followed it.' Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's comments about the level of Nile failing to rise refer to the period prior to its annual flooding during midsummer and hence also speak of the season during which we know the supernova occurred.
Jadon identifies this event as pivotal in Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's eyes for the history of medicine in the Near East. According to him a decline both in scholarly writing on medicine and the quality of medical practice was underway at this time and he credited it to this plague and its decimating effects on the number of scholars and physicians.
In the 12th century a physician from Baghdad, ÿAli ibn Aṯradë wrote a commentary for The Physicians' Banquet. He was a member of an Eastern Christian Baghdadi family that provided three generations worth of prominent physician-philosophers. At the request of Maḥfà «áº ibn al-Masëḥë, a Christian physician from the city of an-Nël in Iraq, he wrote and sent the work as a missive. His commentary is solely concerned with addressing the questions which are posed by the young physician but not answered in the original work. The satirical character thereof goes unnoticed by him, as he answers questions which were posed in a humorous fashion by Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn with lengthy deliberations of his own. In this treatise it becomes clear that ÿAli ibn Aṯradë unlike Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn was not an empiricist this makes his explanations of his diagnostic process valuable, in addition to this feature he also incorporates of Ibn Sëna whom ÿAli ibn Aṯradë credits for the idea of such a work addressing questions by a prominent physician. This also speaks to Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's reputation during that period. Klein-Franke, Dagher, and Troupeau claim Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn himself did not incorporate any thought from Ibn Sëna into his work, as he likely did not have any knowledge of him and view this commentary as the first point of contact between their respective works. Jadon however identifies the Compendium for the Monasteries and the Monks, partially at least as an abbridgment of the QÃÂnà «n by Ibn Sëna.
Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn is variously known by the names Elbochasim de baldach, Elbocasim de baldach, Albulkasem de Baldac, Ububchasym de Baldach, Eluchasem Elimitar, and Albullasem de baldak in medieval Latin texts and Europe at large. Baldach being Medieval Latin for Baghdad.
There is some ambiguity in determining the birthday and date of death for Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn. With regards to the birthday this is not surprising as such information was not of any social importance in the 11th century Arab world and the actual age of a person of secondary importance compared to the idealised age of 72 years in medieval Arab biographical literature. Conrad suggests that Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn likely did not even himself know when he was born. With regards to his date of passing most of the confusion comes down to an error introduced by al-Qifá¹Âë; who in his biography of Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn claims he died in the year 444 AH/1052 AD. This is an impossibility given that Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa lists works written up to 11 years after that time and even quotes Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn commenting on previously discussed astronomical events which modern science can securely say occurred after that date. An exact date of his death comes transmitted however by al-Ḥalabë who through an acquaintance saw it noted by the descendants of (Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn's former adversary from Aleppo) that he died on 8 à  auwÃÂl 458 AH/2 September 1066 AD. This date was also used by Schacht for his entry on Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn in the Encyclopaedia of Islam. As well as by Klein-Franke in his biography of Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn. Though other scholars like Graf (who also identifies the date of 444 AH as incorrect) state more general date ranges like "after 1067/68"; Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn commonly uses , that is Anno Graecorum for dates in his texts, this often causes trouble for other authors when converting it to other systems, Ibn Abë Uá¹£aibiÿa converts the Year of Alexander 1365 to 450 AH, miscalculating by 4 years, while an apostille in a manuscript of the Essay on the Holy Eucharist converts Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn giving the Year of Alexander 1365 to 760 Era of the Martyrs instead of 770 Era of the Martyrs.
At times a work called is falsely attributed to Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn, it is however a work by an Andalusian botanist.
Works by Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn published in Arabic:
Translations of works by Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn:
Literature about Ibn Buá¹ÂlÃÂn: