Sinan ibn Thabit

Abū Saʿīd Sinān ibn Thābit ibn Qurra (Arabic: أبو سعيد سنان بن ثابت بن قرة), c. 880–943, was a medieval scholar who served as the court physician of the Abbasid caliphs al-Muqtadir (r. 908–934), al-Qahir (r. 932–934), and al-Radi (r. 934–940).[1]

As the son of Thabit ibn Qurra (c. 830–901) and the father of Ibrahim ibn Sinan (908–946), Sinan belonged to an illustrious family of astronomers and mathematicians who hailed from the Upper-Mesopotamian city of Harran and who worked at the Abbasid court in Baghdad.[2] He and his family belonged to a religious sect of star worshippers known as the Sabians of Harran, though Sinan was forced to convert to Islam during al-Qahir's brief reign (932–934), in which the Abbasid caliph persecuted the Sabians and eventually forced Sinan to flee to Khurasan for a short period.[3] It appears that his children remained Sabian:[4] his sons Ibrahim ibn Sinan and Thabit ibn Sinan (died 976) both remained Sabian, while one his daughters married into another Sabian family, giving birth to Ibrahim ibn Hilal al-Sabi' (925–994), who also resisted multiple attempts to convert him from his ancestral faith.[5]

Although Sinan ibn Thabit was primarily known as a physician,[6] having built several hospitals in Baghdad and having overseen a licensing system for physicians,[7] he apparently did not write anything on medicine.[8] His works, which dealt with political philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy,[9] are all lost except for a short treatise on moral philosophy called Siyāsat al-nufūs ("On Governing Souls").[10] His work on political philosophy, which was inspired by Plato's Republic, was criticized by the historian al-Mas'udi (died 956).[11]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ De Blois 1995; Dold-Samplonius 1981; O'Connor & Robertson 1999.
  2. ^ The entire family line is given by De Blois 1995; see also Roberts 2017.
  3. ^ De Blois 1995; Dold-Samplonius 1981; O'Connor & Robertson 1999.
  4. ^ De Blois 1995.
  5. ^ Roberts 2017, p. 253.
  6. ^ O'Connor & Robertson 1999.
  7. ^ Makdisi 1990, p. 249: "When, in the year 319/931, a man died as the result of an error on the part of a medical practitioner, al-Muqtadir gave orders to his Inspector of Markets that no one was to practise medicine unless licensed by Sinan b. Thabit. Over eight hundred and sixty physicians passed the examination and each was given a license defining the practice he was to pursue."
  8. ^ De Blois 1995.
  9. ^ O'Connor & Robertson 1999.
  10. ^ De Blois 1995.
  11. ^ O'Connor & Robertson 1999.

Sources

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  • De Blois, François (1995). "Ṣābiʾ". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. & Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VIII: Ned–Sam. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 673. ISBN 978-90-04-09834-3.
  • Dold-Samplonius, Yvonne (1981). "Sinān ibn Thābit ibn Qurra, Abū Saʿīd". In Gillispie, Charles C. (ed.). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 12. New York: Charles Scribners’s Sons. pp. 447–448.
  • Makdisi, George (1990). The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-4744-7065-0.
  • O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (1999). "Abu Said Sinan ibn Thabit ibn Qurra". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. University of St Andrews.
  • Roberts, Alexandre M. (2017). "Being a Sabian at Court in Tenth-Century Baghdad". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 137 (2): 253–277. doi:10.17613/M6GB8Z.
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