218 Philosophy and Medicine in the Formative Period of Islam, Warburg Institute Colloquia 31, 2017 Al-Ṭabarī and al-Ṭabarī. Compendia between Medicine and Philosophy Elvira Wakelnig Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Sahl Rabban al-Ṭabarī and Abū l-Ḥasan Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al- Ṭabarī have a lot in common. Not only do they share the nisba, indicating that they are both originally from Tabaristan, but also the kunya Abū l-Ḥasan. In the case of ʿAlī ibn Rabban, we even know that he was awarded this honorary name when he converted from Christianity to Islam under al-Mutawakkil. 1 Both Ṭabarīs were physicians, but also versed in philosophy. 2 And both composed a medical compendium, a kunnāš, 3 in which philosophy plays an important role. These two compendia of the Ṭabarīs are the focus of the present article and each of them will illustrate a different aspect of the broader topic of the current volume, i.e. medicine and philosophy in the Islamic world. ʿAlī ibn Rabban’s kunnāš, the Paradise of Wisdon (Firdaws al-ḥikma) will be presented as an example of a medico-philosophical treatise for which we can observe two com- pletely different sorts of reception. It was either perceived as a medical compendium and only appreciated for its medical contents, or entirely stripped of this component and passed on as a solely philosophical source text. As for Abū l -Ḥasan Aḥmad al- Ṭabarī’s Hippocratic Treatments (al-Muʿālaǧāt al-Buqrāṭīya), its introduction will be taken as an interesting example of a medical text which contains references to Greek philosophical works not figuring prominently in the parallel philosophical tradition of the time. Thus the usage of medical, on the one hand, and philosophical texts, on the other, seems to have not been exclusively reserved to the corresponding science and tradition, but the texts seem to have moved freely across the boundaries between the disciplines. 1. See M. Meyerhof, ‘ʿAlī Ibn Rabban aṭ-Ṭabarī, ein persischer Arzt des 9. Jahrhunderts n. Chr.’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 85, 1931, pp. 38–68 (55). 2. For ʿAlī see Ibn al-Qifṭī’s Taʾrīḫ al-ḥukamāʾ, ed. J. Lippert, Leipzig, 1903, p. 231; ʿAlī ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī, Firdaws al-ḥikma, ed. M. al-Ṣiddīqī, Berlin, 1928, p. 1.11–17, and German translation thereof in Meyerhof, ‘ʿAlī’ (n. 1 above), p. 43. There he talks about having been taught by his father what the latter knew of medicine and philosophy. On his father see H. Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke, Leipzig, 1900, p. 14. For Aḥmad see Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, Kitāb ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ, ed. A. Müller, 2 vols, Cairo, Königsberg, 1882–4, vol. I, p. 321; al-Ṭabarī, al-Muʿālaǧāt al-Buqrātīya, facsimile ed. F. Sezgin, 2 vols, Frankfurt, 1990, vol. I, p. 39 where he refers to Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī as his master (šayḫunā). See also A. Hasnawi, ‘Un élève d’Abū Bišr Mattā ibn Yunus: Abū ʿAmr al-Ṭabarī’, Bulletin d’études orientales, 48, 1996, pp. 35–55 (43–4). 3. For ʿAlī see Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-Fihrist, ed. G. Flügel, 2 vols, Leipzig, 1871–2, vol. I, p. 296; and Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, Kitāb ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ (n. 2 above), vol. I, p. 309: both of them list the Firdaws al-ḥikma and a kunnāš among the works of ʿAlī, whereas ʿAlī himself (Firdaws [n. 2 above], p. 8.5) states in the first chapter of his book that ‘the name of this compendium (kunnāš) is the Paradise of Wisdom (Firdaws al-ḥikma)’. This recalls al- Qifṭī’s report ([n. 2 above], p. 231) who mentions that the title of ʿAlī’s kunnāš is Firdaws al-ḥikma. It thus seems safe to conclude that kunnāš and Firdaws refer to one and the same work. For Aḥmad see Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, Kitāb ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ (n. 2 above), vol. I, p. 321. © Warburg Institute 2018. Use of this material is subject to all applicable copyright laws and fair use conventions.