Owned by a 13th century Yemeni Sultan: notes in the hand of the head physician of Damascus

Tanukhi, Majd al-Din ibn Sahnun al-, Syrian physician (1222-1295 CE). Autograph manuscript signed.

€ 28.000,00

The personal handwritten notes of Damascus's 13th-century "Sheikh of Physicians", previously owned by a 13th-century Sultan of Rasulid Yemen. Majd al-Din ibn Sahnun al-Tanukhi was a medical writer and a physician at the al-Jabal hospital in Mamluk Damascus, known for his medical text "Mufarrih al-Nafs". These two leaves of handwritten notes are in al-Tanukhi's own hand, signed and dated a year before his death. A second signature adds a royal contemporary provenance: a short ownership inscription in one margin is signed by Umar ibn Yusuf (ca. 1242-96 CE), the third Rasulid Sultan who ruled Yemen as Al-Ashraf Umar II. That Umar was based in Yemen indicates that al-Tanukhi's notes travelled across the length of the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps shortly after its author's death. Sultan Al-Ashraf Umar II was well known for his interest in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. He himself was the author of a treatise on agriculture and another on astronomy, and was likely aware of al-Tanukhi's reputation as a physician in Mamluk Damascus.

In his notes, al-Tanukhi discusses extracts from different medical texts, most likely including Ibn Sina's (Avicenna's) Canon of Medicine. The title "Sheikh al-Atibba'" ("Head of Physicians") of Damascus suggests that al-Tanukhi was well respected in his field. In the tumult of late 13th century Damascus, facing repeated Mongol invasions and the Black Death, a physician of his calibre would have been a valuable asset.