Untitled

PRAISE OF AVICENN^. /
should take up cpe cf the more detailed treatises, such as the .
"
Sixteen (Treatises," Sitfa l
ashar) of Galen, ,or the, "Continens"
>(Hdwty of Mohammad ibn Zakariyya, or the "Complete Prac-.^
titioner" (Kdmilus-Sindfaty, or the "Hundred Chapters" (Sad
3
Bdb) of Abu Sahf Masi'hf or the , Qanun of Abu 'All ibn Sina
(Avicenna) 4
5
or the Dnakhira-i-Kkwdrazm-shdht and read it in
,
,
*
his leisure moments of other
;
or, if he desires t6 be independent
works, he may content himself with the Qdniin.
The Lord (vv) of the two worlds and the Guide of the two
"
Grosser Races : says Every kind of game is in the belly of the
wild ass 6 ": all this of which I have spoken is to be "found in
the Qdniin, with much in addition thereto and whoever has
;
mastered the first volume of the Qdmln, to him nothing will be
hidden of the general and fundamental principles of Medicine,
for could Hippocrates and" Galen return to life, it were meet
that they should do reverence to this book. Yet have I heard a
wonderful thing, to wit that one hath take'n exception to Abu
'All [ibn Sina] in respect of this work, and hath embodied his
objections in a book, which he hath named " the Rectification of
the Qdniin''"] and it is as though I looked at both, and perceived
what a fool the author was, and how detestable is the book
which he has ! composed For what right has anyone to find fault
with so great a man when the very first question which he meets
with in a book of his which he comes across is difficult to his
comprehension ? For four thousand years
*
'
79
the wise men of an-
tiquity travailed in spirit and melted their very souls in order to
reduce the Science of Philosophy to some fixed order, yet could
not effect this, until, after the lapse of this period, that ^comparable
philosopher and most powerful thinker Aristotle weighed
this coin in the balance of Logic, assayed it with the touohsttfne
of definitions, and measured it by the scale of analogy, so that all
doubt and ambiguity departed from it, and it became established *
1
This, known to mediaeval Europe as the " Continens," is the most detailed an 9
most important of ar-Razi's works. The original Arabic exists only in manuscript,
and that partially. The Latin translation was printed at Brescia in A.D. 1486, and in
1500, 1596, 1509 and 1542 at Venice. See Note XXVII at the end, No. 4.
2 This notable work, also known as al-Kitdbifl-Maliki( il'
Liber Regius ") was composed
by 'A!i ibnu'l-'Abbas al-Majiisi (" Haly Abbas " of the mediaeval physicians of
Europe), who die^d in A.H. 384 (A.D. 994). The Arabic text has been lithographed
at Lahore in A.H. 1283 (A.D / 1866) and printed at Bulaq in A.H. 1294 (A.D. 1877).
There are two editions of the Latin translation (Venice, A.D. 1492, and Lyons,
A.D. 1 5^3).
3
AVicenna's master, d. A.H. 390 (A.D. 1000). See Wiistenfeld, loc. tit., pp. 59-
60, No. 1 18; p. Vf of the Persian notes; and Note XXVII, No. 9, at the end.
4 See Note XXVII, No. 10, at the end.
8 3ee Rieu*s Persian Catalogue, pp. 466-467.
8 Meaning that every kind of game is inferior to the wild ass. It is said prove*rbi-
ally ?f any crAe who excels his fellows. See Lane's Arabic Lexicon, p. 2357, s.v. IjJ.
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