Kitāb al-Dhakhīrah fī Ilm al-Ṭibb (The Treasury on the Science of Medicine) in Judeo-Arabic, Attributed to Thābit ibn Qurrah, [Syria?, ca. 14th-15th century]

The only known copy of this important work written in Hebrew characters.

Thābit ibn Qurrah (d. 901), a member of the Sabian polytheistic sect who was born in Harran (present-day Turkey) and died in Baghdad, was an extraordinary medieval polymath and a personal friend of Caliph Al-Mu‘taḍid. He is best known for his contributions to the fields of astronomy, meteorology, mathematics, geography, physics, medicine, music, botany, and agriculture, as well as for his translations from Greek to Arabic. One work often attributed to him is Kitāb al-dhakhīrah fī ilm al-ṭibb, a treasury of medical knowledge covering the illnesses of the human body from top to toe in thirty-one chapters. The book also includes discussions of proper hygiene, poisons, plague, and pharmacology, among other topics.

The present lot is a copy of this Classical Arabic compendium transcribed into Hebrew letters. It was probably used by generations of learned, Arabic-speaking Jewish doctors and/or pharmacists living and working in Islamic lands (and perhaps also in Italy). The text begins shortly after the start of chapter 11 (on diseases of the mouth) and ends in the middle of chapter 30 (on the use and abuse of wine). Manuscripts of this book are rare even when they are written in Arabic characters, presumably due to the wear that results from extensive use, but the present lot is apparently the only surviving exemplar written in Hebrew characters.

Sotheby’s is grateful to Paul Fenton for providing information that aided in the cataloging of this manuscript.

Provenance

Abraham (pastedown of upper board) 

Moses (pastedown of upper board) 

Mordecai Ancona(?) (pastedown of upper board, f. 146v) 

Nissim (pastedown of lower board)  

Physical Description

175 folios (6 7/8 x 5 in.; 175 x 125 mm) (beginning collation indeterminate, but starting with f. 10: i⁸, ii⁶ [ii_1,8 lacking], iii-iv¹², v¹¹ [v₁₂ lacking], vi-ix¹², x¹⁴, xi-xiii¹², xiv¹¹ [xiv₁₂ lacking], xv⁸) on thick, unmarked Eastern paper; premodern foliation in pen in Hebrew characters in upper-outer corners of rectos (1-29, 31-69 only); modern foliation in pencil in Arabic numerals generally in lower margin at center (cited); written in Eastern square (titles and incipits) and semi-cursive (text body) scripts in black ink; single-column text of 16-21 lines per page; unruled; chapter numbers in Hebrew characters frequently in upper-outer corners of rectos; horizontal catchwords in lower margins of versos; corrections, strikethroughs, insertions, and marginalia (some in Arabic characters) in later hands, often cropped; episodic use of manicules; Latin characters on f. 129r and on pastedowns of both boards. Lacking some material at the beginning and at the end, as well as probably 7 folios in the middle (see above collation); some staining and dampstaining, particularly toward the front; minor thumbing (though more serious on f. 22) and creasing; some leaves reinforced along gutters or outer edges; short tears through upper section of f. 1 and in lower edge of f. 31; small losses in outer margin of f. 10, in lower-outer edge of f. 18, and in upper-inner corner of f. 175; f. 36 bound backward; ff. 88-89 with contemporary patched paper repair in inner quadrant. Premodern leather over board, worn, scratched, and stained; spine in three compartments with raised bands, with remnants of paper ticket in upper compartment and some damage to lower compartment; premodern paper pastedowns.

Literature

Rifaat Y. Ebied, “Thābit ibn Qurra: Fresh Light on an Obscure Medical Composition,” Le Muséon 79 (1966): 453-473.

Aḥmad Farīd al-Mazīdī (ed.), Al-dhakhīrah fī ilm al-ṭibb: muʻālajat al-amrāḍ bi-al-aʻshāb (Beirut: Manshūrāt Muḥammad Alī Bayḍūn: Dār al-Kutub al-Ilmīyah, 1998).

Max Meyerhof, “The ‘Book of Treasure’, an Early Arabic Treatise on Medicine,” Isis 14,1 (May 1930): 55-76.

Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, vol. 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 260-261.