Yuhanna ibn Bukhtishu (Johannes Bukhtishu) was a 9th-century
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
or
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
physician from
Khuzestan, Persia.
Yuhanna ibn Bukhtishu‘ (or Bakhtishu‘) was a member of a prominent family of
Nestorian Christian physicians originally from
Jundishapur
Gundeshapur ( pal, 𐭥𐭧𐭩𐭠𐭭𐭣𐭩𐭥𐭪𐭱𐭧𐭯𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭩, ''Weh-Andiōk-Šābuhr''; New Persian: , ''Gondēshāpūr'') was the intellectual centre of the Sassanid Empire and the home of the Academy of Gundishapur, founde ...
in Khuzastan who worked in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
from the 8th through the 10th centuries. The name is composite of middle Persian Bukht (saved) and
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
Ishu' (Jesus), which means saved by Jesus or one whose saviour is Jesus.
Yuhanna ibn Bukhtishu was the illegitimate son of
Jabril Ibn Bukhtishu
Jabril ibn Bukhtishu, (Jibril ibn Bakhtisha) also written as Bakhtyshu, was an 8th-9th century physician from the Bukhtishu family of Assyrian Nestorian physicians from the Academy of Gundishapur. He was a Nestorian and spoke the Syriac language.
...
(d. 870CE) who was physician to the caliphs
al-Ma'mun,
al-Wathiq
Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn ibn Muḥammad ( ar, أبو جعفر هارون بن محمد المعتصم; 17 April 812 – 10 August 847), better known by his regnal name al-Wāthiq bi’llāh (, ), was an Abbasid caliph who reigned from 842 until 84 ...
and
Al-Mutawakkil in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
.
Ibn Bukhtishu‘, who worked in Baghdad about 892CE, is known to have written a treatise on astrological knowledge necessary for a physician, but the treatise is now lost. It is uncertain whether he was in fact the author of a treatise on materia medica that is attributed to him in the extant copies, of which The
National Library of Medicine
The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library.
Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...
has one.
See also
*
List of Iranian scientists
The following is a non-comprehensive list of Iranian scientists, engineers, and scholars who lived from antiquity up until the beginning of the modern age. For the modern era, see List of contemporary Iranian scientists, scholars, and engineer ...
*
Bukhtishu, Abdollah ibn.
*
Bukhtishu, Gabriel ibn.
*
Bukhtishu
The Bukhtīshūʿ (or Boḵtīšūʿ) were a family of either Persian or Nestorian Christian physicians from the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries, spanning six generations and 250 years. The Middle Persian-Syriac name which can be found as early as at ...
Further reading
*Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, Handbuch der Orientalistik, Abteilung I, Ergänzungsband vi, Abschnitt 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), p. 111
*Fuat Sezgin, Medizin-Pharmazie-Zoologie-Tierheilkunde bis ca 430 H., Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Band 3 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), p. 258
*Ibn Abi Usaybi'ah, 'Uyun al-anba' fi tabaqat al-atibba', ed. A. Müller, 2 vols. (Cairo and Königsberg: al-Matba'ah al-Wahbiyah, 1882–1884) vol. I p. 202.
For the family of physicians, see Lutz Richter-Bernburg, "Boktisu" in Encyclopædia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, 6+ vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul and Costa Mesa: Mazda, 1983 to present), vol. 4, pp 333–336.
Notes
Physicians from the Abbasid Caliphate
9th-century Iranian physicians
Members of the Assyrian Church of the East
Iranian Christians
Iranian Assyrian people
People from Khuzestan Province
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