Journal of - International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine

‘Alī b. Sahl Rabbān al-Tabarī and His Works
Salim AYDUZ
complicated parts of the book came to be resolved by way
his intellectual expertise, translators preceding him had
failed to solve. He wrote a scholarly commentary on the
book, expounding some of the finer points that were not
understood by previous translators.
Sahl received the title of Rabbān because of his vast
learning and knowledge of medicine and philosophy. Since
the title “Rabbān (rabbi)” was given to the Jewish religious
leaders, most of the historians thought that this family was
a Jewish origin. Additionally, given the different writings of
the title, most of the people discommended about him. For
instance, one of the oldest books of Islamic history, The History
of abarīٱ of al- abarīٱ 2 (d. 922), while giving his name
and family names as Ali b. Rabbān al-Nasrānī, Mas’ūdī
mentions him as “Ali b. Zayd”. For in Ibn al-Nadīm, he is
called “Ali b. Sahl b. Rabbal” 3 , whilst Yāqūt writes about
him as “Ali b. Zayn” 4 , and Ibn al-Qiftī as “Ali b. Rabbān” 5 .
The erroneous knowledge about his Jewish origin most
probably goes back to what Ibn al-Qiftī said about him. He
wrote that “Rabbān, as a Jewish physician from Tabaristān,
was very good on mathematics, astronomy, and Jewish religious
law and he translated the philosophical texts from
one language to the other. His son Ali was a famous physician,
who went to Iraq and settled down in Samarra. The
words al-Rabbān, al-Rabin and al-Rāab are names given to
those who are the eminent Jewish theologians” 6 .
On the other hand, Ali b. Rabbān very clearly described
himself as a Christian in his book Kitāb al-Dīn wa al-Dawla.
In Firdaws al-ٱikma, he also explains why his father got
the title Rabbān and the meaning of it: “My father was one
of scribes of Marw, noble, intelligent, kind, very good on
the books of medicine and the philosophy. The medicine,
as his family field has the priority. The aim of this was the
satisfaction spiritually and religiously, not the boasting and
to get benefit from it. This is why he got the title Rabbān.
The word Rabbān that implies “our leader, our senior person
and our teacher” 7 . In his other book Al-Radd ‘alā al-Nā
2 Ibn Jarīr al-Tabāri, Tārih al-umam wa al-muluk, ed. M. Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim,
Dar al-Savaydan, Beirut, IX, 352.
3 Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-Fihrist (completed 376/987), ed. Rizā Tajaddud,
Tahran 1971, pp. 296, 354.
4 Yāqût al-Hamawī, Mu’jam al-‘Udabā, ed. Ahmad Farid Rifai, Cairo,
1936-38, VI, 429.
5 Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qiftī (d. 1248), Tārīkh al-hukamā, ed. Julius Lippert,
Leipzig, Dietrich, 1903, pp. 31, 167, 187.
6 Zahīr al- Dīn ’Alī Baythaqī, Tārīkh hukamā al-Islām, Muhammad Kurd
’Alī edition (Damascus, 1946), 22–23; D. Thomas, “al-ٱabarī,” in The
Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000, X, 17-18.
7 Sami. K. Hamarneh, Health Sciences in Early Islam, ed. Munawar A.
Anees, Texas: Zahra Publications, 1983, II, 353-358.
ISHIM 2011-2012
ārāٱ he says that he used to live as a Christian until his age
was seventy when converted to Islam. In spite of the fact
that some scholars mentions him as a Jewish physician who
wrote in Arabic, and some of them just a Jewish scholar,
when his known treatises were published, all these claims
became academically invalid.
One has to say that the dates given about his birthday
and death in some modern studies are also erroneous. According
to Brockelmann, for example, he was born in 192
H (808 CE), and according to Meyerhof in 193 H (809 CE).
In a statement given in his Firdaws al-ٱikma, it was understood
that he was born earlier. In this statement, he says that
“when I was praying maghrib with my dad, I saw a huge fire
in the sky as a column shape. Just after this event, the ruler
got into trouble and lost some of his territories”. Sources
such as Ibn Al-Athīr and Ibn Kathīr say that this event occurred
during the reign of Caliph Mahdī and that the relevant
event occurred in 167 H (783-84 CE) to the ruler of
Tabaristān Wandad Khurmuz. Evidently, Ali b. Rabbān was
of a certain age so that he can remember the event. Therefore,
most probably he was born around 778-9 CE.
‘Alī b. Sahl Rabbān received his preliminary education
from his father Sahl in medical and natural sciences, calligraphy,
mathematics, philosophy and literature. Besides
giving him a good education, his father taught him religion
and philosophy. As one can understand through his works,
apart from Arabic, Persian and Syriac, he had also mastered
Hebrew and Greek languages to a high degree of proficiency.
For example, he translated his own book written in Arabic
Firdaws al-ٱikma into Syriac language.
When he was ten years old, he was taken to Tabaristān
(henceforth al-ٱabarī) by his father and he spent his early
youth in Tabaristān. The intellectual and pleasant atmosphere
which enabled him to devote his time to the study
of a range of subjects including philosophy, medicine and
religious, as well as various aspects of natural sciences
After he completed his education in Tabaristān, he
moved to Iraq in 813 when he was thirty years old. Since
ٱ-‏al his residence in Tabaristān, he became known as
abarī. When Māzyār b. Qārin appointed as a governor of
Tabaristān in 825, he back to Tabaristān and went Māzyār’s
service as a scriber. During this time, he started to compose
his Firdaws al-ٱikma there but he finalised in Samarra in
850.
His patron Māzyār revolted against the ruler in 839,
but he was captured and executed. Upon the Māzyār’s unsuccessful
revolt against the caliph and execution, he went
to Rayy and back to his own job as a physician. But after
a while, he went again Iraq and settled down in Samarra.
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