Da'ud Abu al-Fadl (1161–1242) was a Karaite

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish physician who lived in Ayyubid Egypt in the twelfth century CE. He was born in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

in 1161 and died there about 1242. Having studied medicine under the Jewish physician Hibat Allah ibn Jami, and under Abu al-Fafa'il ibn Naqid, he became the

court physician A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accorda ...

of the sultan al-Malik al-'Adil Abu Bakr ibn Ayyub, the brother and successor of

Saladin Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سه‌لاحه‌دین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...

. He was also chief professor at the al-Nasiri Hospital at Cairo, where he had a great many pupils, among them being the historian Ibn Abi Usaibiyyah. The latter declared that Abu al-Fadl was the most skillful physician of the time and that his success in curing the sick was miraculous. Abu al-Fadl was the author of an Arabic

pharmacopoeia A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (from the obsolete typography ''pharmacopœia'', meaning "drug-making"), in its modern technical sense, is a book containing directions for the identification of compound medicines, and published by ...

in twelve chapters, entitled ''Aḳrabadhin'', treating chiefly of antidotes.

Sources

Kohler, Kaufmann and M. Seligsohn. "Fadl, Daud Abu al-".
'' Jewish Encyclopedia''. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906, citing: *Ibn Abi Usaibi'ah, ''Uyun al-Anha' fi Ṭabaḳat al-Aṭibba','' ed. Aug. Müller, ii. 118–119, Königsberg, 1884: *Carmoly, in ''Revue Orientale'', i. 418; *Steinschneider, ''Jewish Literature,'' pp. 195, 366, note 16a; **idem, ''Bibl. Arab.-Jud.'' § 154. 1161 births 1242 deaths 13th-century Egyptian physicians Medieval Karaite Jewish physicians Medieval Jewish physicians of Egypt Karaite rabbis 12th-century Egyptian rabbis Physicians from the Ayyubid Sultanate 13th-century Egyptian rabbis 12th-century Egyptian physicians Court physicians Rabbis from Cairo Egypt under the Ayyubid Sultanate {{Egypt-med-bio-stub