Kitāb al-Wujūd al-Thānī (The Second Existence); Kitāb al-Kayfiyyah wa-l-Ḥaqīqah (Modality and Reality); and a number of other titles besides these.

206 – Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī, the physician*

The master‐physician and philosopher Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī was the author of many books and one of the keenest intellects of his age. He travelled widely, enjoyed great esteem, and was known for dignity, altruism, and kind-heartedness toward his patients. His learning was vast, his devotion to study tireless, and his compositions elegant. A persistent moisture affected his eyes—brought on, it is said, by his excessive consumption of broad beans—until he eventually went blind.

He studied under the philosopher al-Balkhī. The management of the hospital (bīmāristān) in Rayy was entrusted to him, and later he directed the Baghdad hospital during the reign of al-Muktafī. In the sciences of the ancients he reached the very pinnacle—may Allah grant us well-being.

Among his writings are: Kitāb al-Ḥāwī, thirty volumes on medicine; Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ; Kitāb al-Aʿṣāb; and Kitāb al-Manṣūrī, which he composed for the ruler Manṣūr ibn Nūḥ al-Sāmānī (1).

It is said that he did not begin serious study until after he had passed the age of forty, whereupon he studied under the physician Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī (2), who had been a Christian before embracing Islam and writing works of his own.