ZAYN AL-DIN JURJANI (D.1136 AD), ZAKHIRAH-I KHWARAZMSHAHI ('TREASURY DEDICATED TO THE KING OF KHWARAZMSHAHI'), AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF MEDICAL SCIENCE, BOOKS I-VIII, PERSIA, 13TH CENTURY AD |

Persian manuscript on paper, 276 leaves, plus 1 fly-leaf, 8 replacement pages at beginning and end, 27 lines to the page written in naskh in black ink, indexes and chapter headings in large extended Eastern Kufic, keywords picked out in red, in light brown leather binding with central stamped cartouches filled with vegetal motifs

In overall good condition, 8 replacement pages at beginning and end, the margins are overall clean, with minor annotations, areas of restoration to the paper, occasionally affecting the text, minor splits and various stains, occasionally thicker ink burning through, as viewed.
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Born in Khwarazm, Zayn al-Din Jurjani composed the Zakhirah no later than 1110-11 AD. He was the first notable physician who wrote in Persian, and his work is unanimously accepted as the first major medical text written in the Persian language. According to Fateme Keshavarz, "the Zakhirah-i has been enriched by al-Jurjani's extensive knowledge of the medical literature of the time". There are twelve various volumes in the Wellcome Library, London (see F. Keshavarz, A Descriptive and Analytical Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, 1986, pp.149-154, no.43). According to Charles Rieu the reason for al-Jurjani's compiling of the Zakhirah was to supply a comprehensive work which would offer the required information on every branch of medical science, and save a physician the trouble and loss of time involved in consulting other books (in short, something he himself required for his work). See C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, Oxford, photolithographic reprint 1966, pp.466-8. Al-Jurjani dedicated al-Zakhirah  to Qutb-al-Din Khwarazm Shah Abu’l-Fath Muhammad Ibn Yamin-al-Din (d.1127 AD).

The Zakhirah consists of ten books (kitab), which are enumerated in the preface, and to each of which is prefixed a full table of numerous subdivisions termed Guftars and Babs. They are as follows:
I. Definition and utility of medicine; composition, structure, and powers of the human body
II. Health and disease; causes and symptoms of disease; accidents of the body 
III. Preservation of health
IV. Diagnosis of diseases; crisis and prognosis
V. Fevers, their various kinds, their symptoms and treatment
VI. Local diseases and their treatment
VII. Tumours and ulcers etc.
VIII. The care to be taken of the external parts of the body, hair, skin, nails etc.
IX. Poisons and antidotes
X. Simple and compound medicaments.

A further thirteenth-century copy of the same work (books I (part II), II and III, dated 666-7 AH/1267-68 AD), sold in these rooms, 20 April 2016, lot 9.