Historical, literary and various scientific works of the Babur dynasty in India

The work of Salih ibn Nasr Allah ibn Sallum (d. 1670), “Al-Kitab fi al-tibb al-jadid al-kimiyay allazi ikhtira Barakilsus” (The Book of New Chemical Treatment Invented by Paracelsus) is a rare specimen of an Oriental edition of a medical tractate by the European author in the late Middle Ages. This Arabic adaptation of the tractate written by Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493 – 1541), the famous Swiss doctor and founder of iatrochemistry (medical chemistry), is kept as three manuscripts dating to the 19th century.
 

In the reign of Babur and the Baburids (1526 – 1858) in India, a number of works on medicine were composed along with historical, literary and scientific works. They are two works by the famous Indian doctor Muhammad Akbar under the pen name of Arzani (d. after 1718), “Tibb-i Akbar” (Medicine of Akbar) and “Mizan-i tibb” (The Scale of Medicine). The first work was devoted to a Delhi ruler Muhyi al-din Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir I (1658 – 1707), and is a Persian edition of the abovementioned commentary in Arabic “Sharh al-Abab wa al-’alamat” by Nafis ibn ‘Ivaz al-Kirmani. Muhammad Akbar not only translated this work into Persian, but also supplemented it, thus creating an independent work. The collection has nine folios of this work among which some artistically decorated are fine specimens of the calligraphy and binding.
 

There are rare manuscripts of works by several Central Asian and Khurasanian authors of the 17th – 20th centuries, including an autograph “Qanun al-mabsut” (The Comprehensive Canon) in Uzbek by a doctor and poet of the 20th century, Basitkhan ibn Zahidkhan Shashi (1878 – 1959). This is a rare example of a work on medicine written in a traditional Oriental form in the modern period. There is also an abridged version of “The Comprehensive Canon” made by the author’s brother, Hamidkhan ibn Zahidkhan Shashi.

You can learn more about this topic in the book-album “The Collection of the Al-Biruni Institute of Oriental studies, the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan” (part two, “Miniature and Calligraphy”) (Volume XXII) from the series "Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections".

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