Ibn al-Kattani

The Treatment of Dangerous Diseases Appearing Superficially on the Body by Abī ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ḥasan Ibn al-Kattānī.

Born in Córdoba in what is now Spain, he wrote books on logic, inference and deduction. For some time he was the personal physician of Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir, sultan of al-Andalus, and wrote The Treatment of Dangerous Diseases Appearing Superficially on the Body (Mu`alajat al-amrad al-khatirah al-badiyah `ala al-badan min kharij). It was cited by later writers, but thought to be now lost, until a copy of it was discovered among the manuscripts now at the National Library of Medicine. Much of the treatise is on the subject of poisonous bites.^[1]

Al-Kattani also wrote an anthology of Andalusian poetry, and became especially famous by his book on metaphor in Andalusian poetry.

He died in Saragossa in 1029.

References

1. ^ Emilie Savage-Smith, The Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine [1](retrieved 23-09-2011)date

Bibliography

By Ibn al-Kittani:

• Kitab al-Tashbihat (translated by Wilhelm Hoenerbach 1973)

Secondary literature in Spanish:

• Bosch Vilá, J.: El Oriente Árabe en el desarrollo de la cultura de la Marca Superior; Madrid, 1954.
• Tomeo Lacrué, M.: Biografía Cientifica de la Universidad de Zaragoza; Zaragoza, 1962.
• Martínez Loscos, C.: Los orígenes de la Medicina en Aragón, Cuadernos de Historia J. Zurita, n.° 6-7, Zaragoza, 1958.

In German:

• Dichterische Vergleiche der Andalus-Araber. I und II by Wilhelm Hoenerbach

Review:

• Farida Abu-Haidar, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 37, No. 2 (1974), p. 460

External Sources

• Ibn Hazm of Cordova on Logic