Ibn al-Tilmidh

Amīn al-Dawla Abu'l-Ḥasan Hibat Allāh ibn Ṣaʿīd ibn al-Tilmīdh (Arabic: هبة الله بن صاعد ابن التلميذ; 1074 – 11 April 1165) was a Christian Arab physician, pharmacist, poet, musician and calligrapher of the medieval Islamic civilization.^[1][2]

Ibn al-Tilmīdh ابن التلمیذ
Born	Habbat-allah Ibn Said أبو الحسن هبة الله بن صاعد بن هبة الله بن إبراهيم البغدادى النصرانى 1074 Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate, now Iraq
Died	11 April 1165 (aged 92) Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate, now Iraq
Occupation	Physician, Pharmacist, Poet, musician, Calligrapher, As physician in Al-'Adudi Hospital, Baghdad, now Iraq, Personal physician of Caliph Al-Mustadi
Notable works	Marginal commentary on Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine, Al-Aqrābādhīn al-Kabir, Maqālah fī al-faṣd

Life

Ibn al-Tilmidh worked at the ʻAḍudī hospital in Baghdad where he eventually became its chief physician as well as court physician to the caliph Al-Mustadi, and in charge of licensing physicians in Baghdad.^[3] He mastered the Arabic, Persian, Greek and Syriac languages. Al-Tilmidh was a friend of the Muslim scientist al-Badīʿ al-Asṭurlābī with whom he frequently sided against Abu'l-Barakat.^[4]

He compiled several medical works, the most influential being Al-Aqrābādhīn al-Kabir, a pharmacopeia which became the standard pharmacological work in the hospitals of the Islamic civilization, superseding an earlier work by Sabur ibn Sahl.^[3] His poetry included riddles: Abū al-Maʿālī al-Ḥaẓīrī quotes five of them, and a verse solution by al-Tilmīdh to another riddle, in his Kitāb al-iʿjāz fī l-aḥājī wa-l-alghāz (Inimitable Book on Quizzes and Riddles).^[5]: 266

Works

• Marginal commentary on Ibn Sina's "Canon"
• Al-Aqrābādhīn al-Kabir
• Maqālah fī al-faṣd