Muslim medical culture in modern Central Asia: a brief note on manuscript sources from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries

Abstract

This article surveys the body of medical literature, in Arabic, Persian and Turkic, produced and circulated in Central Asia from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, on the basis of catalogues of Islamic manuscript collections in the region, highlighting royal patronage of medical knowledge as well as the continuation of traditional modes of transmitting medical lore into the colonial and Soviet periods. The survey is a reminder that indigenous medical lore in Central Asia left a substantial body of still-unexplored sources, and that the encounter of traditional Central Asian medical practices with ‘modern’ medicine cannot reasonably be studied solely on the basis of Russian colonial or Soviet perspectives.

Keywords:

• Islamic manuscripts
• Islamic medical lore
• Central Asian medical literature
• Scientific patronage
• Shïbānids
• Ashtarkhānids
• Manghïts

Notes

For a preliminary discussion of assumptions about ‘pre-Islamic’ vs. ‘Islamic’ origins in the ethnography of religion in Central Asia, see DeWeese (2011). Such assumptions appear not only in scholarship shaped by Soviet training, but also in Western studies shaped by the legacies of ‘Sovietology’; see, with regard to notions of health and illness, the account of healing practices among the Qazaqs in Michaels (2003, 22, 24 ff.).

For a discussion of more balanced approaches to the social history of medicine in other parts of the Muslim world, see the review article of Gallagher (2012). The study of Central Asia, by contrast, remains plagued by two trends that promote the neglect of sources produced from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. Sovietological works, uncritically admiring of ‘modernity’, do so from a later perspective, while scholarship focused on a presumed classical ‘golden age’ often does so from an earlier vantage point; for an extreme example of the latter, see the denunciations of ‘modernity’ in Beckwith (2009), where the historical development of Central Asia during the early-modern and modern eras is entirely ignored, and sources of the type outlined here are implicitly denied value.

The most important collection is that of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan (the ‘Beruni institute’), in Tashkent; for its manuscripts, the basic guide remains the 11-volume SVR. The relevant volume of the catalogue of the major manuscript collection in Dushanbe (that of the Institute of Oriental Studies), KVR, was also consulted for the present survey.

For a brief overview of medical literature preserved in manuscript collections in Uzbekistan, see Shterenshis (2000). A more substantial survey of Islamic medical history with reference to manuscripts preserved in Tashkent is Hikmätulläev (1994), in which, alongside some brief studies and Uzbek translations of several Arabic medical works, the author gives a biographical survey of medical authors represented in the Tashkent collection (18–109). Uzbek translations of parts of many medical works, based on manuscripts preserved in Tashkent, are provided (with discussion of the works and their authors) in Häsäniy (1993).

For an overview of Muslim medical history and literature, see Savage-Smith (2000); for Arabic works of the classical period, see Sezgin (1970); for Persian medical literature, covering later works as well, see Storey (1971), and the older work (also covering Arabic sources) of Fonahn (1910). Hofman (1969) includes a brief section on authors of medical works in Chaghatay Turkic (VI, 241–9); like much of Hofman's coverage, this sketch was rendered obsolete by the absence of reference to the seventh volume of SVR (devoted exclusively to Turkic works, mostly in Chaghatay), which appeared already in 1964.

For example, an Arabic commentary on an early thirteenth-century medical work by Najīb al-Dīn Samarqandī (d. 619/1222), Sharḥ al-asbāb va'l-‘alāmāt, by a native of Kirmān, Nafīs b. ‘Avaż, who was invited by Ulugh Beg to Samarqand (the commentary was written there in 827/1424): MS Tashkent, 2872 (467 ff., ascribed to the seventeenth century; here and throughout the notes, the number given after ‘MS Tashkent’ is the manuscript's Inventory Number), SVR, I, 256, No. 568 (see Hikmätulläev [1994, 77–9]). This work did become known outside Central Asia, and is found in manuscript collections elsewhere; within Central Asia, it was admired and utilized by a medical author active in Marv in the 1770s (see below, note 37, and Häsäniy [1993, 114]), and was the chief basis for a compilative description of the symptoms of illnesses ‘from head to foot’ (a common genre in eighteenth- to nineteenth-century Central Asia), described at SVR, VIII, 103–4, No. 5686 (Inv. No. 8312/I, ff. 1a–53b, copied in 1233/1817), suggesting the ongoing elaboration of medical traditions. On the author of the original work, see Storey (1971, 215), and Levey and al-Khaledy (1967).

For example, Manṣūr b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Risāla dar tashrīḥ-i badan-i insān, a work on anatomy dedicated to Tīmūr's grandson Pīr Muḥammad. The work is known from European manuscript collections, and was lithographed in the nineteenth century; at least one copy in Tashkent reflects Ashtarkhānid patronage: MS Tashkent, 2105 (57 ff., described in SVR, I, 255, No. 566; cf. Hikmätulläev [1994, 73]), copied, with notes and corrections, in 1101/1683, by a certain ‘Arabshāh, who identifies himself only as a banda-yi dargāh (‘servant of the court’), at the order of Subḥān Qulī Khān. The copyist also added six illustrations representing the skeleton, the nervous system, internal organs and so on. (The illustration of the skeleton, on f. 19b, is reproduced in the catalogue, facing p. 254). Another copy, MS Tashkent, 3663/V (ff. 331b–367a, SVR, IX, 283, No. 6436), copied in Kabul at the beginning of the nineteenth century, includes the illustration of the skeleton, as well as several pages left blank, presumably for further illustrations. Another Timurid-era medical work following a similar trajectory is a pharmacopia entitled Baḥr al-khavāṣṣ, dealing with the medicinal properties of various substances; the apparently unique copy (see Storey [1971, 228]) indicates that the original work, completed in 867/1462–3 by Ni‘matullāh al-Kirmānī, known as Ḥakīmī (who served for a time at the court of Sulṭān Ḥusayn Bāyqarā), was copied under Subḥān Qulī Khān, and was then compared with other medical works and corrected to produce the surviving copy, evidently prepared for Shāh Murād or Amīr Ḥaydar: MS Tashkent, 2146 (366 ff., SVR, I, 284, No. 642; however, Hikmätulläev [1994, 79–80], writes that this manuscript was copied for Subḥān Qulī Khān, without mention of the later stage in the manuscript's production). Some Timurid works, to be sure, had a shorter patronage sequence. An anonymous Persian medical work (called only Risāla-yi Suhaylīya dar ṭibb), evidently produced at the Timurid court of Herat, survives only in a copy made in the middle of the sixteenth century (MS Tashkent, 11,541, 218 ff.; SVR, X, 119–20, No. 6866, with the opening page shown on p. 121); another work, an Arabic medical dictionary, with descriptions of illnesses and medicines, entitled Baḥr al-javāhir, was evidently produced under Timurid patronage by Muḥammad b. Yūsuf of Herat, and is preserved outside Central Asia, but copies produced and preserved in Central Asia were likewise copied no later than the sixteenth century: MSS Tashkent, 2464 (419 ff., ascribed to the fifteenth century, SVR, I, 256, No. 567); 7192 (165 ff., copied 997/1589 in Kesh [Shahrisabz], SVR, V, 273–4, No. 3923).

This may refer to a grandson of the prominent Abū'l-Khayrid Jānī-bek; in the course of Muḥammad Shïbānī Khān's conquests, his uncle Jānī-bek was briefly allotted the region of Akhsī, but it is not clear whether this grandson, Maḥmūd b. Sulaymān b. Jānī-bek, ruled in the region. The description of the British Library's copy of the Dastūr al-‘ilāj (Add. 17,947, in 230 ff., completed in 1060/1650), in Rieu (1881, II, 473), incorrectly renders Maḥmūd Shāh's seat of rule as ‘Ajnī’.

See Storey (1971, 233–4, covering the Dastūr al-‘ilāj and the Muqaddima). The work was lithographed several times in India in the late nineteenth century.

One Tashkent copy of the Muqaddima-yi Dastūr al-‘ilāj, MS Tashkent, 2264/I, ff. 7b–97b (SVR, IX, 297–8, No. 6453), bears seals of ‘Abd al-‘Azīz Khān, dated 1071/1660–1, and of ‘Abd al-‘Azīz Khwāja b. Naṣr al-Dīn Khwāja al-Ḥusaynī, dated 1212/1797 and 1230/1814–15; another (10,925/VI, ff. 88a–151a, SVR, IX, 298, No. 6455) was copied in 1261/1845 by Nūr Muḥammad Khuttalānī; a third (7269/I, ff. 1b–94a, SVR, IX, p. 299, No. 6456) was produced already after the Russian conquest, in 1296/1879; and a fourth was copied in 1216/1801, but in Kabul (3663/II, ff. 15b–77b, SVR, IX, 298, No. 6454).

The Muqaddima-yi Dastūr al-‘ilāj of Sulṭān ‘Alī was rendered into Chaghatay by an unknown translator in Yarkand; one copy survives (MS Tashkent, 11,124, 140 ff., first half of the nineteenth century; SVR, VII, 293, No. 5449). It is briefly discussed in Hikmätulläev (1994, 81, 117–8), with a short excerpt from the introduction given in Cyrillic Uzbek transcription. An earlier medical work reflecting Chaghatayid patronage in Eastern Turkistan during the early sixteenth century is not represented in the collections of Tashkent or Dushanbe. This is the Tuḥfa-yi khānī, written by a certain Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad ‘Abdullāh (who studied medicine in Shīrāz) and dedicated to Sulṭān Sa‘īd Khān (r. 1514–33); see Storey (1971, 232–3).

Copies of the Dastūr al-‘ilāj in Tashkent include Inv. Nos. 757 (240 ff., undated, copied by Bek-Muḥammad b. Sayyid Muḥammad), SVR, I, 264, No. 591; 2264/II (ff. 106a–366b, copied in 998/1589 by Bāqī Muḥammad b. Bābā Aḥmad Sāgharjī), SVR, I, 264, No. 592; 11,297 (282 ff., copied in 1281/1864–5 by Mullā Ḥusayn b. Mullā Qurbān, ‘Ṭabīb-i Harātī’), SVR, IX, 296, No. 6451; 7269/II (ff. 94b–446a, copied in 1296/1879 by Ḥabībullāh b. ‘Abd al-Sallām), SVR, IX, 297, No. 6452; and 3663/III (ff. 79b–326b, copied 1216/1801 by Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Ḥakīm, a native of Lahore then dwelling in Kabul), SVR, IX, 296, No. 6450. See also the manuscripts in Dushanbe described in KVR, VI, Nos. 2228–2229 (both copied in the early nineteenth century). According to Hikmätulläev (1994, 80–2), the Tashkent collection holds seven copies of the Dastūr al-‘ilāj; he adds that Inv. No. 2264 was owned by Sharīf-jān Makhdūm (d. 1932), a famous Bukharan qāżī and bibliophile (on whom see Allworth and Shukurov [2004], and Vokhidov and Choriev [2007]).

One Tashkent copy of the Persian Dastūr al-‘ilāj, 11,261/I (ff. 1b–261b) [SVR, IX, 295–6, No. 6449], was completed in Rajab 1140/February 1728, evidently in the Chū Valley, upon the order of ‘Khudāy-banda Bahādur Ghāzī, known as (mulaqqab be-) Erke Khān b. ‘Abd al-Rashīd’, who must have been a Chinggisid ruling among the Qazaqs (note the manuscript's date, in the midst of the period of intense Junghar pressure on the Qazaqs of this region). The manuscript was later in the possession of a physician named ‘Bāsiṭ Khān Zāhid Khān-oghlï’, of ‘old Tashkent’ in Syrdar'inskaia oblast'; the same figure's seal also appears in a late nineteenth-century copy of the Jāmi' al-favā'id of Yūsuf b. Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Haravī, that is, the work known as Ṭibb-i Yūsufī (on which see below, notes 25, 33 and 62): Inv. No. 11,259 (83 ff., a nineteenth-century copy), SVR, IX, 294–5, No. 6448.

MS Tashkent, 2275/IX (ff. 179a–202b), SVR, IX, 304, No. 6469.

MS Tashkent, 2275/VI (ff. 108a–132b), SVR, IX, 309–10, No. 6475.

MS Tashkent, 2275/VIII (ff. 172a–178a), SVR, IX, 305, No. 6470; on the author and his works, see Hikmätulläev (1994, 86–7). The Khwāja Pāyanda Muḥammad mentioned as the patron of this work is perhaps to be identified with the Mawlānā Pāyanda Muḥammad whom ‘Abdullāh Khān b. Iskandar appointed to teach in his newly completed madrasa in Bukhārā in 974/1566–7 (see Ḥāfiẓ Tanïsh [1983, 259]), but Muḥammad Yūsuf's activity chiefly in Samarqand may render this identification less likely.

MS Tashkent, 1598, SVR, I, 282–3, No. 636 (281 ff.); for other copies of the work, evidently without illustrations (but including several from the sixteenth century), see SVR, I, 283–4, Nos. 637–41, and SVR, IX, 350–2, Nos. 6521–5 (according to Hikmätulläev [1994, 73–4], the Tashkent collection holds 20 copies of the work in all). On the Ikhtiyārāt and its author, see Storey (1971, 220–3).

One manuscript containing this Persian rendering, copied in 1225/1810, is preserved in Tashkent (Inv. No. 1832, SVR, I, 243–4, No. 545, noted in Storey [1971, 204]). Two other copies are preserved in Dushanbe: KVR, VI, 180-82, Nos. 2205 (ascribed to the late seventeenth century, in 137 ff.), and 2206 (an incomplete copy from the nineteenth century, evidently done by Mullā ‘Avaż Badal b. Mullā Muḥammad Sharīf Jūybārī). On other Persian adaptations of the work of ‘Alī b. ‘Īsā al-Kaḥḥāl, see Storey (1971, 203–5). Another work evidently by the same Shāh ‘Alī b. Sulaymān al-Kaḥḥāl is preserved in Tashkent, Inv. No. 4935/II (ff. 9b–41a, copied in 1008/1599 by a physician named Mawlānā ‘Abd al-‘Azīz), SVR, IX, 286–7, No. 6439; however, the work is dated, in the catalogue (on the basis of a chronogram), to 905/1499–1500, suggesting a misreading, given the date of this author's other work.

Two surviving manuscripts of the Shifā' al-‘alīl were copied in the same year, 1072/1662. The slightly older one, MS Tashkent, 2477/I, runs to 471 ff. (SVR, I, 271–2, No. 609, with a good description of the contents); evidently neither the copyist nor the place he worked is mentioned. The other copy from 1072/1662 is Inv. No. 2265, in 400 ff., copied in Balkh by Muslim b. Muḥammad al-Abīvardī (SVR, IX, 306–8, No. 6472), probably reflecting Ashtarkhanid patronage; this manuscript was bound in 1284/1867–8, and was purchased for 10,000 tangas by Sharīf-jān Makhdūm (mentioned above, note 12), evidently in or after 1318/1900–1. Another essentially full copy of the work, MS Tashkent, 2611, in 393 ff., was evidently copied in the mid-nineteenth century (SVR, IX, 308–9, No. 6474), and bears the seal of an owner, a certain Mullā Mīr Ẓuhūr al-Dīn, dated 1298/1880–1. A fourth partial copy of the same work, completed in 1268/1852, contains only the section on childhood illnesses (Inv. No. 2629/II, ff. 396b–417b; SVR, IX, 308, No. 6473). The author, ‘Ubaydullāh b. Yūsuf ‘Alī al-kaḥḥāl, and his work are briefly discussed in Hikmätulläev (1994, 84–5).

MS Tashkent, 10,299, 102 ff., copied in 978/1570 (SVR, X, 120, 122, No. 6867, with the first page shown on p. 123).

Abū'l-Ghāzī's Manāfi‘ al-insān is preserved in MS Tashkent, 4107 (64 ff., defective at the end, dated to the first half of the nineteenth century), described in SVR VII, 294, No. 5450; f. 2a of the manuscript is reproduced on p. 295 of the catalogue volume. The work is noted as Abū'l-Ghāzī's, with a brief excerpt from the introduction given in Cyrillic Uzbek, in Hikmätulläev (1994, 91–2).

MS Tashkent, 3336 (167 ff., copied 1243/1827–8, evidently an autograph), SVR, VII, 304, No. 5467; the work was dedicated to Sayyid Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī, identified as ‘a Khwārazmian shaykh’. According to Hikmätulläev (1994, 97–8), the author gives his own genealogy on ff. 165b–167a.

The Chaghatay translation of Jurjānī's Dhakhīra-yi Khwārazmshāhī survives in a single incomplete copy: MS Tashkent, 8263/I, ff. 1b–72b, SVR VII, 284, No. 5443 (the inventory number is given as 8203/I in Hikmätulläev [1994, 62]); the catalogue description assigns the manuscript to the eighteenth century, which if correct would make it clear that the translation preceded the extensive Khivan translation programme under the Qonghrats, in the mid-nineteenth century, but the dating seems unlikely. On Zayn al-Dīn Ismā‘īl Jurjānī (d. 531 or 535/1136–7 or 1140–1) and his work, see Storey (1971, 207–11). Several other late Chaghatay medical works are represented in single manuscripts, and some at least may be of Khwārazmian provenance; see SVR, VII, 301–3, Nos. 5460–5. Here too may be noted the Chaghatay translation of a Persian ‘Risāla-yi ṣaydīya’, on the medical use of various animal parts (and on methods for hunting as indicated in the title), which appears to be of Khwārazmian provenance; see the introduction to Häsäniy and Yoldasheva (1994), where the editors note that a manuscript of the Persian original is preserved in Tashkent at the Institute of Oriental Studies, but give no Inventory No. for either the Persian or the Chaghatay manuscript.

MS Tashkent, 436/V (ff. 114b–128b, copied 1271/1854), SVR I, 280, No. 629.

MS Tashkent, 8391 (143 ff., dated 1299/1882), SVR, VII, 292, No. 5448; cf. Hikmätulläev (1994, 117), and Häsäniy (1993, 49, giving the Inv. No. as 8931).

From the early Ashtarkhanid era, a copy of a fourteenth-century Persian commentary on an abbreviated version of Ibn Sīnā's Qānūn was completed in 1016/1607 by Shaykh-zāda Muḥammad b. Shaykh-jān al-Karmīnī al-Bukhārī (MS Tashkent, 2492, SVR, I, 249, No. 551), but it is not entirely clear that the copy was prepared for a royal patron. A short excerpt from a work by a certain Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ b. Qutluq-biy, entitled simply Risāla-yi ḥikmat or Risāla dar bayān-i mu‘ālajāt-i ṭibbī, is given in Uzbek translation in Häsäniy (1993, 253–5), with reference to a manuscript in Tashkent (Inv. No. 1810) copied in 1724; it is not clear where or when the work was written.

MS Tashkent, 2320, 58 ff., copied, evidently, before 1055/1645 (SVR, V, 351, No. 4054); cf. Inv. No. 2900/III, ff. 23b–31b (copied 1215/1800; SVR, V, 352, No. 4055), containing only the end of the work. See the discussion in Hikmätulläev (1994, 90–1).

MSS Tashkent, 433 (624 ff., dated 1108/1696), SVR, I, 251–2, No. 557; and 2111 (672 ff., dated 1109/1697), SVR, I, 252, No. 558.

MS Tashkent, 2275/I (ff. 1b–57a, evidently copied in the seventeenth century); SVR, IX, 365–6, No. 6540.

The Iḥyā' al-ṭibb-i Subḥānī survives in three complete copies in Tashkent: Inv. Nos. 2101 (301 ff., copied at the request of Amīr Ḥaydar, but not completed, evidently, until 1248/1832, by one ‘Abdullāh Kātib), SVR, I, 265–6, No. 597; 3605/I (ff. 1b–135b, copied in 1212/1797 by Ūzbek Khwāja Mīr Ḥaydarī), SVR, IX, 319–20, No. 6485 (Hikmätulläev [1994, 94–5], mentions this manuscript alone when discussing the work); and 9750/II (ff. 4b–358b, copied 1249/1834 in Bukhārā by Ghulām Bahā' al-Dīn), SVR, IX, 320, No. 6486 (a partial copy of the work appears in Inv. No. 3605/II, ff. 137b–193b, dated to 1261/1845, SVR, IX, 321, No. 6487). Another incomplete copy, evidently made in 1257/1841, is held in Dushanbe (KVR, VI, 220–1, No. 2274 (Inv. No. 75/I, ff. 1b–51b), and what is likely a full copy, dated 1256/1840, is held in St Petersburg; see Miklukho-Maklai (1964, 36, No. 30). The first Tashkent copy noted here, Inv. No. 2101, bears seals indicating that it belonged to Sayyid Mīr Ṣiddīq, a son of the Manghït Amīr Muẓaffar (r. 1860–85).

The manuscript of the Turkic work was obtained in Herat by Vámbéry, who published portions of the text, with a German translation, in Vámbéry (1867, 164–72). See now the description of the work in László (2006; I am indebted to Ruth Meserve for a copy of this article); László does not mention the Persian work ascribed to Subḥān Qulī Khān, though he does cite Hofman, who mentions the Persian and Turkic works and affirms that the dispositions do not agree (Hofman [1969, VI, 245–6, and IV, 271]). No doubt direct examination of the Persian work will be required to determine the relationship, if any, between the two texts. In this connection, a Persian astrological work by the same khān is preserved in a nineteenth-century Khivan translation (MS Tashkent, 1205, 42 ff., copied 1272/1855–6, SVR, VII, 266–7, No. 5424), perhaps suggesting a similar trajectory for the khān's medical work.

See SVR, VII, 297–9, Nos. 5451–6 (all evidently nineteenth-century copies), and a copy from 1277/1860 (SVR I, 280, No. 631, Inv. No. 436/III, ff. 66b–104b), ascribed to Ḥāfiẓ-i Kalān b. Badr al-Dīn Qārī, and not identified as a translation). A brief section from the latter manuscript is translated into Uzbek in Häsäniy (1993, 258–9, with the work described as the original work of Ḥāfiẓ-i Kalān from 1860 [see 390, note 238]).

For medical works of Moghul patronage, some preserved in copies of Indian origin brought to Central Asia, but some copied in Central Asia, see SVR, I, 266–7, Nos. 598–600 (evidently Indian copies), 268–70, Nos. 602–6 (at least one manuscript copied in Bukhārā), 272–4, Nos. 610–12 (evidently not Central Asian copies), 289–90, Nos. 655–6; SVR, IX, 312–15, Nos. 6479–80, 321–33, Nos. 6488–6501 (some Indian and some Central Asian copies), 356–61, Nos. 6533–6, 366–74, Nos. 6542–8 (No. 6533, a copy of a medical work compiled under Jahāngīr in 1036/1626–7, was copied in Bukhārā in 1279/1863 by Muḥammad Murād b. Mīrzā Qoldash, who copied many of the medical manuscripts in the Tashkent collection); SVR, V, 279, No. 3926 (an Indian copy); SVR, X, 114–19, Nos. 6861–5 (all but the first in a single seventeenth-century manuscript from India), and KVR, VI, 194-8, Nos. 2233–8 (most apparently produced in Central Asia), 216–17, Nos. 2267–8. On the circulation of Moghul medical works in Central Asia, see further Hikmätulläev (1994, 87–9, 92–4), Häsäniy (1993, 231–3), and the Uzbek translation of one such work, Häsäniy (1991), with excerpts also in Häsäniy (1993, 98–112). For various works by the celebrated ‘Yūsufī’, that is, Yūsuf b. Muḥammad b. Yūsuf Haravī, who lived under Bābur and Humāyūn, preserved in nineteenth-century Central Asian manuscripts, see SVR, I, 258–64, Nos. 572–590; SVR, IX, 291–5, Nos. 6441–8, 299–304, Nos. 6457–68 (mostly ninteenth-century Central Asian copies); see also KVR, VI, 182–91, Nos. 2207–27, 214, No. 2265 (on Yūsufī, see Storey [1971, 235–40]; Häsäniy [1993, 47–50, 190–3, with translations from four of his works, 51–98, 193–206]; Hofman [1969, VI, 148–62]; and Shterenshis [2000, 101]).

For medical works of Safavid patronage, see SVR, I, 265, Nos. 594–6, and 270–1, Nos. 607–8; SVR, V, 276–9, Nos. 3929–35 (Indian and Central Asian copies); SVR, IX, 315–19, Nos. 6481–4 (some Indian, some Central Asian copies), 354–6, Nos. 6528–32, 361–2, No. 6537, 363–5, No. 6539; and KVR, VI, 192–4, Nos. 2230–2 (the first of these works is evidently a Central Asian copy from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, but Nos. 2231 and 2232 are seventeenth-century copies produced in Iran but brought to Central Asia; the former, 2231, is a work on the anatomy of the brain and the head), 217–20, Nos. 2269–73 (including one manuscript, containing the seventeenth-century Tuḥfat al-mu'minīn, copied in 1225/1810 in ‘Yanghī Qūrghān’ by Mullā Mīr Ni‘mat-jān b. Dāmullā Mullā Mīr ‘Abd-i Muḥammad [sic] Tāshkandī, in 518 ff., No. 2272). On a later Iranian work circulated widely in Central Asia, see Häsäniy (1993, 207–23).

See the description of the Central Asian copy of a Persian medical work written for Aḥmad Shāh Durrānī (KVR, VI, 198–9, No. 2239), and the description of a likely Central Asian copy, from 1290/1873–4, of a Persian medical work written in 1199/1785 for his son Tīmūr Shāh (SVR, IX, 331–3, No. 6501). A later Persian work produced, evidently, in Kabul (in 1220/1805–6), the Navādir al-favā'id va majma‘ al-javāhir of Muṣṭafā b. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm al-Khurāsānī, dedicated to his teacher Sa‘d al-Dīn Aḥmad Anṣārī (from a village near Kābul), is represented by four copies in Tashkent (SVR, I, 276–7, Nos. 617–20), of which one was clearly copied in Bukhārā (in 1292/1875, No. 618, in 235 ff.), and another is of probable Central Asian origin (No. 620, in 342 ff., copied in 1279/1862–3 by Niyāz-Muḥammad Qarshīgī); the work is of potential interest for the religious dimensions of healing, insofar as it includes, according to the catalogue description, discussions of ‘sympathetic and magical means’ for curing illnesses in addition to medicines.

The Tashkent collection holds two copies of an anonymous Arabic rendering of the work of Paracelsus (d. 1541), one copied in Kazan around 1809 (Inv. No. 3508, SVR, I, 277–8, No. 621), the other copied in 1299/1881–2 in Bukhārā and owned by the same Sayyid Mīr Ṣiddīq b. Sayyid Amīr Muẓaffar, whose seal in this case is dated 1296/1878–9 (Inv. No. 2631/III, SVR, I, 278, No. 622). Persian translations of French medical works on pediatrics and on the circulation of the blood are preserved in Dushanbe (KVR, VI, 202–3, Nos. 2244–5), though they were evidently copied in Iran (in 1296/1879).

The work of ‘Ḥasrat’ is preserved in MS Tashkent, 2905/II (ff. 155b–324a, copied 1261/1844–5 by Ḥājjī Muḥammad Samarqandī), SVR, I, 274–5, No. 614; the catalogue description assigns the work the title Niẓām-i ṣiḥḥat, and describes it as poetic description of the symptoms of various illnesses written in 1188/1774 by an anonymous native of Marv. The work was noted, as anonymous, in Storey (1971, 278). The same title and manuscript are mentioned in Hikmätulläev (1994, 96), where the author is identified as Sayyid Muḥammad ‘Ḥasrat’, who served at the court of Bayrām-‘Alī Khān in Marv and was killed in 1786. The fullest discussion of ‘Ḥasrat’ is that of Häsäniy (1993, 112–15), who stresses the paucity of biographical information on the author (without referring to the death-date given by Hikmätulläev), and gives a more detailed account of the work's structure: according to Häsäniy, the manuscript contains two sections of a work originally intended to consist of three parts (the third does not survive or was perhaps never completed); the first section bears the title Niẓām-i ṣiḥḥat and was dedicated to Bayrām-‘Alī Khān, while the second was dedicated to this ruler's son, Ḥusayn, and bears the separate title Tuḥfa-yi Ḥusaynī. Extensive excerpts from the unique manuscript are given in Uzbek translation in Häsäniy (1993, 115–32 [from the first part, and 132–74 [from the second]).

MSS Tashkent, 2850/II, ff. 49b–309a, copied 1306/1888 (SVR, I, 288, No. 652), called ‘Amal al-ṣāliḥīn; 3490, 427 ff., copied 1250/1834–5 (SVR, IX, 374–5, No. 6549; here the cataloguer, Hikmätulläev, inexplicably links the nisba Qā'inī with a town of Kurdistan rather than with the well-known town of Khurāsān); 3486, 574 ff., copied in the Dār al-shifā madrasa in Bukhārā in 1267/1851 (SVR, IX, 375–6, No. 6550); 3493, 468 ff., copied 1268/1851–2 (SVR, IX, 376, No. 6551). This work was evidently lithographed in Tehran in 1867; on the author, Ṣāliḥ Qandahārī Qā'inī, see Storey (1971, 279).

MS Tashkent, 431, 501 ff., copied 1260/1844 (SVR, I, 288–9, No. 653), bearing the seal of Sayyid Mīr Ṣiddīq b. Amīr Muẓaffar; another copy, Inv. No. 2116/VII, is written in the margins of a copy of the fifteenth-century Anvār-i suhaylī, at ff. 830b–1004a (SVR, I, 289, No. 654).

MS Tashkent, 2785, in 158 ff., ascribed to the mid-nineteenth century (SVR, I, 275, No. 615).

MS Tashkent, 2612/I, ff. 1b–56a, copied in 1275/1858 from a manuscript copied from the author's autograph (SVR, I, 275–6, No. 616); this work alone is noted, on the basis of this copy, in Hikmätulläev (1994, 96–7). Another manuscript of the work is preserved in Dushanbe, Inv. No. 75/II, ff. 59b–124a, copied 1257/1841 (KVR, VI, 200, No. 2241).

MS Tashkent, 2529/I (1b–16a, ascribed to the late nineteenth century), SVR, I, 280, No. 632.

MS Tashkent, 2900/XXXII, ff. 483b–498a, copied 1215/1800), SVR, V, 291, No. 3959.

MS Tashkent, 2716/II (ff. 113b–336a), SVR, V, 281, No. 3940.

A large copy of the Ṭibb-i Akbar, completed in 1112/1700–1 by the Indian author Muḥammad Akbar, known as Arzānī, as a Persian translation and expansion of the work presented by Nafīs b. ‘Avaż Kirmānī to Ulugh Beg (see above, note 6), was prepared for Naṣrullāh: MS Tashkent, 4759 (534 ff., copied 1275/1858–9; SVR, IX, 324–5, No. 6490). Of uncertain patronage is a copy of the Shifā' al-maraż, a medical work in Persian verse by Shihāb al-Dīn b. ‘Abd al-Karīm (a native of Ghazna who was evidently trained in medicine in Kabul and wrote his work most likely in 990/1582, in India), completed in Kesh (Shahrisabz), in the khānqāh of Shaykh Shams al-Dīn (that is, Kulāl), evidently in 1276/1860 (MS Tashkent, 10,425/II, ff. 9b–122b, described in SVR, IX, 311, No. 6478, where the date of copying is given as 25 Shavvāl 1267/16 May 1860, a clear error: 25 Shavvāl 1276 does correspond to 16 May 1860); two other copies are described in SVR, IX, 310–11, Nos. 6476–7. Substantial excerpts from the Shifā' al-maraż are given in Uzbek translation in Häsäniy (1993, 14–46; Häsäniy says that the Tashkent collection contains two copies of the work, and ascribes the author to the fourteenth century, based on the manuscript described at No. 6476).

MS Tashkent, 2906, 483 ff., evidently the author's own copy, or perhaps his draft (SVR, I, 267–8, No. 601); cf. Hikmätulläev (1994, 103). For copies of the Mīzān al-ṭibb itself, see SVR, I, 266–7, Nos. 599–600, and KVR, VI, 194–5, No. 2233, with further references to catalogues of collections outside Central Asia.

MS Tashkent, 2716/IV, ff. 344b–363a, dated 1255/1839 (SVR, I, 290–1, No. 659; the other ‘copy’, described at SVR, I, 291, No. 660, runs to just six folios); noted in Storey (1971, 293).

MS Tashkent, 436/VII, ff. 130b–154b, SVR, I, 279, No. 627.

MS Tashkent, 9254, several parts noted in SVR, VIII, 111–13, Nos. 5690–3.

On his copy of Subḥān Qulī Khān's work, see above, note 30. Mīr Ṣiddīq's seals appear also in MS Tashkent, 2128/II (ff. 3a–112b), an undated but evidently seventeenth-century copy of the Persian Zubda-yi qavānīn-i ‘ilāj, written in 871/1466 by Muḥammad b. ‘Alā' al-Dīn b. Haybatullāh al-Sabzavārī, known as ‘ghiyāth al-mutaṭabbib’ (SVR, I, 257, No. 569); on the work and its author, see Storey (1971, 228). Hikmätulläev (1994, 76) refers to a sixteenth-century copy of the same work, in 104 ff., held in the Tashkent collection, evidently not described in the published catalogue, and mentions the seventeenth-century copy in 110 ff., without noting its connection to Mīr Ṣiddīq.

MS Tashkent, 254/I (ff. 5b–16b), SVR, I, 287, No. 650; the work from which the excerpt is taken is the Qarābādīn-i Qādirī of Muḥammad Akbar (Arzānī), written in 1126/1714.

MSS Tashkent, 2745/I (1b–83b, 1304/1887; SVR, V, 284, No. 3949); 5021/II (5b–145a, 1311/1893; SVR, IX, 341–2, No. 6514). Cf. Hikmätulläev (1994, 102–3). Note also the many brief nineteenth-century compilations of ‘recipes’ for medicines and other therapies, described in SVR, I, 279, Nos. 624–6, and V, 281–3, Nos. 3941–6, 284–5, Nos. 3950–3, 291–2, Nos. 3960–3.

MS Tashkent, 2572/XXXIV, ff. 770a–787b [sic], but also described as comprising eight folios, and hence perhaps 770a–777b), SVR, V, 283, No. 3947.

MS Tashkent, 2974/II (ff. 108b–219b), SVR, I, 278, No. 623; noted in Storey (1971, 291).

MS Tashkent, 8257/IX, ff. 45b–54a; SVR, VII, 305, No 5468.

MS Tashkent, 10,814 (155 ff., copied 1321/1903–4), SVR, IX, 345–8, No. 6519; see the extensive description of the work's contents.

MS Dushanbe, Inv. No. 1175 (86 ff., evidently copied in 1330/1912), KVR, VI, 203–4, No. 2246.

Ḥādhiq's Taḥqīq al-qavā‘id is preserved in three copies in Tashkent, described in SVR, IX, 335–8, Nos. 6505–7 (with a detailed description of its contents at No. 6506): Inv. Nos. 6794 (193 ff., copied 1282/1865–6); 1306 (232 ff., copied 1317/1899); and 710 (incomplete, in 90 ff., undated but bearing a seal of Yūnus-jān Dāda Muḥammad-oghlī aghālïq Khūqandī, dated 1338/1919–20). The descriptions are by Hikmätulläev, who wrote a brief article on this author's medical works: Hikmätulläev (1969); see also the discussion in Hikmätulläev (1994, 99–102). Ḥādhiq was a son of the controversial Sufi shaykh known as Islām Shaykh or Ṣūfī Islām (expelled from Bukhārā under Shāh Murād and later killed during the Qājār attack on Herat in 1807). On other Persian translations of Chaghmīnī's Qānūncha, see Storey (1971, 219–20).

See SVR, VII, 300–1, Nos. 5457–9 (5457 = Inv. No. 10,196/III, ff. 95a–209a, copied in 1263/1846–7).

MS Tashkent, 12,535/III; this manuscript (not mentioned in SVR, but noted in Hikmätulläev [1994, 104–5]), was copied, according to Hikmätulläev, by Ḥāmid-khān Shāshī, the older brother of Bāsiṭ-khān, in 1953 (on these two figures, see below, notes 64–6).

One manuscript of this work (in which the author is identified as Maḥmūd Ḥakīm Yayfānī b. Dāmullā Shādī Muḥammad Farghānī), copied in 1356/1937, is preserved in Dushanbe (Inv. No. 1220, in 38 ff.; KVR, I, 133–4, No. 132, giving the author's nisba as ‘Sayfānī’), while another, running to 55 ff. and preserved in a provincial library in Bukhara, was mentioned in McChesney (1978, 24).

The lithographed translation is mentioned in the catalogue description of the Khwārazmian translation noted earlier (SVR, VII, 292, No. 5448); cf. Hikmätulläev (1994, 116–17), and Häsäniy (1993, 49–50). For a modern Uzbek translation of the Jāmi‘ al-favā'id, or Ṭibb-i Yūsufī, based on ‘several manuscripts’ and printed versions, see Häsäniy (1992); excerpts appear in Häsäniy (1993, 193–204).

MS Tashkent, 11083 (125 ff., copied by Shukūr qārī Ātā Khwāja Īshān oghli in 1344/1925–6), SVR, VII, 284–7, No. 5444. On the author (who died ca. 1930) and this work, see Hikmätulläev (1994, 114–16).

See Hikmätulläev (1994, 106–7); the younger brother also completed an ‘Uzbek’ translation of Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq's Arabic translation of the aphorisms of Buqrāṭ (that is, Hippocrates; on Persian renderings of the Arabic version, see Storey [1971, 193–4]), but Hikmätulläev makes no mention of a manuscript copy.

This work was published, in Cyrillic Uzbek transcription, as Häsäniy (2003).

These works are mentioned in Hikmätulläev (1994, 107–9), with no further particulars on the whereabouts of the manuscripts; presumably they are in the Tashkent collection, or still in private hands.

A fuller picture of the extent of Islamic medical literature produced in Central Asia will be possible when the current project to prepare an online catalogue of the Beruni institute's manuscripts is completed.

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Notes on contributors

Devin DeWeese

Note: This survey is a byproduct of a paper prepared for a conference on ‘Healing Paradigms and the Politics of Health in Central Asia’, organized at Columbia University by the Global Health Research Center of Central Asia, in April 2011; my participation in the conference resulted not from any expertise on the history of medicine or health issues in Central Asia – I have none – but from my work as a student of religious life in the region, in recognition of the substantial impact of religion, broadly understood, upon notions of illness and health. The original paper included observations on two areas of overlap between religious activity and healing paradigms (shrine-centered religious practices focused on the restoration or maintenance of health and Sufi rites adapted as healing ceremonies), as well as the survey of Central Asian sources on medical history that is presented here.