Ibn Butlan

Abū 'l-Ḥasan al-Muḫtār Yuwānnīs ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdūn ibn Saʿdūn ibn Buṭlān (Arabic: أبو الحسن المختار إيوانيس بن الحسن بن عبدون بن سعدون بن بطلان; listen^ⓘ; ca. first quarter of the 11th century AD – 8 Šauwāl 458 AH/2 September 1066 AD) known as Ibn Buṭlān (Arabic: ابن بطلان; listen^ⓘ) was a physician and Arab Christian theologian from Baghdad during the Abbasid era. He left his hometown for travels throughout the Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor during which he practiced medicine, studied, wrote, and engaged in intellectual debates most famously the Battle of the Physicians with Ibn Riḍwān. He was a first-hand witness of the Schism of 1054 in Constantinople, contributing a work to the discussions surrounding it for Patriarch Michael I Cerularius. After his time in Constantinople he remained in the Byzantine Empire, becoming a monk in Antioch during the end of the Macedonian Renaissance.

He is most renowned for his work Taqwīm aṣ-Ṣiḥḥa (Arabic: تقويم الصحّة, lit. 'Tabular Register of Health'; listen^ⓘ) a handbook on dietetics and hygiene. It was named for its intricate tables, similar to those found within a Taqwīm as-Sana (Arabic: تقويم السنة, lit. 'tabular register of the year'), a type of astrological almanac. He was the first person to use these tables in a non-astrological work, creating a new scientific writing format and should therefore be seen as the main influence on all subsequent uses of this format, like Ibn Ǧazla's Taqwīm al-Abdān fī Tadbīr al-Insān and Abū 'l-Fidāʾ's Taqwīm al-Buldān. The many preserved manuscripts of Latin translations of the Taqwīm aṣ-Ṣiḥḥa in Europe are thought to illustrate the relationship between early modern Europe and the Arab World in the field of medical science. Despite increased European contact with Egypt and Syria because of the Crusades and trade into the sixteenth century there are no Latin translations of medical texts from Arab writers after Ibn Buṭlān.

Ibn Buṭlān is additionally noteworthy for being one of a few non-Muslim physicians about whom enough is known to paint a detailed biography, during a period when the People of the Pact, that is Christians, Jews, and Sabians, dominated the medical profession. Documents like the Cairo Geniza provide scientific records about the medical practices of such physicians but lack reliable information outside of that to create detailed biographies about them and to describe their perception and role within society. Ibn Buṭlān therefore presents an important exception to this general lack of sources.