Medicine Dietetics and Pharmacology - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 241

in the philosophical and associated sci-
ences”, he seems to have been unhappy
in his personal relationships. According
to Ibn al-ifī, “he was a man of narrow
mind and not of sound judgment. He was,
moreover, not of good looks and appear-
ance. Nevertheless, many pupils followed
his lectures and studied under him, and
his fame spread abroad”; but “his pupils
used to relate about him ridiculous things
concerning his medical argumentations,
astrological sayings and logical asser-
tions, if those who have related them
are right.” Among his disciples were
the Fāimid prince, philosopher, author
and bibliophile al- Muba ªª ir b. Fātik,
and the Jewish physician and bibliophile
Afrāīm (Ephraim) b. al-Zaffān; he was
also in friendly relations with an other-
wise unknown Jewish physician, Yahūdā
b. Saāda, to whom he addressed two
treatises. Ibn Riwān died, according to
Ibn Abī Uaybia, in 453/1061.
Ibn Riwān's literary output was very
extensive; the list of titles given by Ibn
Abī Uaybia, if duplicates are eliminated,
comes near to one hundred, though many
of them no doubt represent short trea-
tises, unfinished notes, and the like. Some
twenty have been preserved in manu-
scripts. A few are concerned with astron-
omy, logic, philosophy and theology but
the great majority are medical and in sub-
stance follow closely the works of Galen.
Ibn Riwān possessed a wide knowledge
of ancient medicine but he was not an
original thinker, being a mere exponent of
Hippocrates's and Galen's thought, with-
out adding anything of his own; this was
clearly seen by Ibn al-ifī, who called
his works not very important, derivative,
but well arranged. This lack of originality
becomes almost a positive quality in the
thought of Ibn Riwān, to such a degree
that he did not allow an original thinker
such as al-Rāzī to deviate in the least from

the thought of Galen, and indeed most of
his polemics have their starting-point in
this contention of his. In addition, as Ibn
Abī Uaybia observes, Ibn Riwān “was
insolent in what he said, and he abused
those with whom he had an argument”.
This is amply borne out by the contents
of his treatises against Ibn Bulān (see
below).
Among his more important and better
known works are: (1) a Commentary on the
Quadripartitum of Ptolemy ( · ar al-maālāt
al-arba li-Balūmiyūs ); it was translated into
Latin and into Turkish, and the Latin
translation was printed, together with
the Quadripartitum , among the incunabula
of Venice (and later) several times; (2) a
Commentary on Galen's Ars parva ( · ar
al-ināa al-a ∞ īra li- ⁄ ālīnūs ); this, too,
was translated into Latin, and the transla-
tion was repeatedly printed, together with
the text of Galen, before and after 1500; it
was also translated into Hebrew; (3) Kitāb
Uūl fi 'l-ibb , a compendium ( kunnā ª ),
another of Ibn Riwān's topics to have
been translated into Hebrew; (4) al-Kitāb
al-Nāfi fī talīm ināat al-ibb ; in this topic
Ibn Riwān, displaying a remarkable
knowledge of Greek medical writers, tries
to show that learning medicine from topics
is preferable to learning it from teachers,
turning the necessity of his own study
into a virtue; the work contains impor-
tant information on the transmission of
Greek science to the Arabs; (5) Risalā fī
daf maārr al-abdān bi-ar Mir , a treatise
dealing with the conditions of health and
disease in Egypt and Cairo, the plague
and its causes, preventive measures and
hygienic rules for the inhabitants of Egypt,
including a medical topography of Cairo
and its suburbs in the 5th/11th century;
(6) finally, his controversy with Ibn Bulān
of which three treatises of his have been
preserved, whereas two and perhaps three
more have been lost; the controversy