Anatomie Im Islam

Attitudes Toward Dissection
in Medieval Islam
EMILIE SAVAGE-SMITH
HE question of whether human anatomical dissection

was ever practiced in medieval Islamic society is not
Downloaded from http://jhmas.oxfordjournals.org/ at UB Leipzig on July 27, 2015

easily or unequivocally answered. It has often been
stated in various histories of medicine that dissection
was prohibited by law in Islam, though sources are sel-
dom cited to substantiate this claim.1 It is the validity
of this claim that is the focus of this paper, as well as the general attitudes
toward dissection amongst the medieval Islamic medical and scholarly
communities. There are two aspects to the problem, the legal status of
I. For example, Cyril Elgood, A Medical History of Persia and the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1951, reprinted Amsterdam: APA-Philo Press, 1979), p 327 and p. 404 where
the seventeenth-century journal of Gambroon Fryer is quoted; B Carra de Vaux, "TashrTh," The
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1st ed., 4 vols. (Leiden- Bnll, 1908-34) [hereafter referred to as / ' ] , IV, 690-91;
and Max Mcyerhof and T. Samelli, "Dharrlh," The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 7 vols. (Leiden: Bnll,
1960-93) [hereafter referred to as El1], II, 481, where the supposed Islamic prohibioon is extended to
include die dissection of animals and not just humans. E. W. Lane recounts that a Turkish ruler allowed
dissection to be carried out in the early nineteenth century in Egypt, contrary to the tradioonal legal
ruling "that it was repugnant to the laws of the religion"; see E. W. Lane, The Modern Egyptians
(London: J. M. Dent and N e w York: E P. Dutton, 1936, a reprint of An Account of the Manners and
Customs of the Modem Egyptians published onginally in 1836), p. 122.
This article is part of a larger study earned out at the University of California in Los Angeles, History
of Medicine Division of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, with die generous support of
the National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, Grant No. PHS 2 ROi LM04508. The
author wishes to drank the staffs of die History and Special Collections at the Louise M. Darling
Biomedical Library, die History of Medicine Division of die National Library of Medicine, die
Department of Onental Books at the Bodleian Library, the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and
Printed Books of die Bnosh Library, the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, the Duke University
Medical Center, the John Rylands Library in Manchester, and the library of the Wellcome Institute for
the History of Medicine, for their kind assistance in providing access to manuscript material. She also
wishes to thank Professors Ynez Viole O'Neill, Nancy Siraisi, and M. B. Smith for reading earlier ver-
sions and offenng their comments, though responsibility for all errors and omissions remains solely diat
of die present author. A stimulus for diis study was die essay by Heinrich Schipperges, "Die Anatomie
im arabischen Kulturkreis," FrUhe Anatomie, Eine Anthologie, cds. Robert Herrlinger and Fndolf Kudlicn
(Stuttgart: Wissenschafdiche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1967), pp. 3352, in which he bnefly raised many of
the ideas discussed here, but argued diem differendy.
1995 BY THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OP MEDICINE AND ALLIED SCIENCES, INC.
ISSN OO22 5O45 VOLUME 50 PACES 67 TO I 10
[ 67 ]
68 Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January igg$
dissection and the general intellectual and cultural acceptability of the
practice, for a legal prohibition does not necessarily imply a lack of prac-
tice, as demonstrated, for example, by divination or wine drinking, both
of which continued to be practiced in Islam, though clearly prohibited.
Throughout the study, the term dissection will be used for any post-
mortem opening and examining of a corpse, whatever the motivation
for its undertaking. In Arabic, the word for dissection, tashrfh, is itself an
ambiguous term, for it was used for both anatomy as a description of the
human body and for the empirical science of dissection, while in more
recent times it is also used in the forensic sense of autopsy. There are
parallels between the English word "anatomy" and the Arabic word

tashrlh: "anatomy" comes from the Greek word f| dvaro\rf] formed from
the verb dvaTe'(j.va) meaning "to cut up," just as the Arabic tashrih is a
verbal noun from the root sh-r-h, also meaning "to cut up." Both the
English and Arabic terms are used for the surgical dissection of an animal
or human to disclose its various parts and their positions, structures, and
interrelations, and both can be used for the general science which is con-
cerned with describing the form and structure of organisms. Moreover,
both can be used for any careful, detailed examination and analysis of a
topic which may, in fact, have nothing to do with bodily parts.
Among the general medieval Arabic dictionaries, that by Ibn ManzOr
written in the thirteenth century is typical, for in the entry for the root
sh-r-h the word tashrih is given only two meanings. The first definition
is the cutting of flesh from the bone and mincing it or slicing it very thin
before throwing it onto coals (clearly in this context referring to the
preparation of animal meat for food), while the second meaning is the
expounding in great detail upon a question or problem and thus expos-
ing an obscurity.2 The compilers of such medieval general dictionaries
took no notice of its medical applications.
The medical use of the term is found in later dictionaries concerned
specifically with scientific terminology, such as that by Muhammad 'AIT
al-TahSnaw! written in the eighteenth century. In the entry for al-
tashrlh, al-TahanawI says:
The disclosure of something and its examination. One says "I disclosed
(sharahtu) an obscurity when I expounded (fassartu) it." Associated with it [also]
is the cutting up of meat. In the practice of physicians, it is a term for a science
2. M u h a m m a d ibn Mukarram ibn ManzOr, Lain al-'arab, 20 v o b . (Cairo: B u l a q , 1300-1308/

1 8 8 3 - 1 8 9 0 ) , III, 328. For Ibn Manzflr, d. 7 1 1 / 1 3 1 1 , s e c j . W . Fflck, "Ibn ManzOr," EP (n. 1), III, 8 6 4 .
Savage-Smith : Dissection in Medieval Islam 69
('Urn) by which you learn the parts of the human body, with their distinctive
features and their shapes, sizes, numbers, types, and utilities, and the correlation
between notions not requiring tashrlh. As for the science particularly associated
with the practice of tashrlh, it is another science called 'Urn al-tashrlh diat com-
prises die writing of Galen and so on up to the commentary of the Qdnunjah [a
commentary on the QSnQn of Ibn Siha written by Mahmud ibn 'Unur al-
JaghmTnl who died in 745/1344].3
Thus al-TahanawI seems to be making a distinction between a general
knowledge of the structure of the human body, which he calls simply
tashrTh, and "the science particularly associated with the practice of
anatomy {'ilm bi-kafiyat mubasharat al-tashrih)" which he calls 'Urn al-

tashrih (the science of anatomy) and which consists of the technical
anatomical literature beginning with the Galenic treatises, available
through Arabic translations, and extending through the fourteenth-cen-
tury commentaries on the Canon of Avicenna.
It is also possible that al-TahanawT is trying to distinguish between
anatomical knowledge not requiring dissection and that which does. In
any case, he does not comment upon the occurrence or acceptability of
human dissection. Since there is no separate word in Arabic for dissec-
tion, the ambiguity involved in the word tashrih, often translated in
what follows as anatomy/dissection, is a continual problem in the inter-
pretation of evidence.
In order to test the assertion that dissection was prohibited in Islam,
we must look at some of the legal literature. Islamic law, shari'ah, makes
no distinction between religious and secular law, for it covers all aspects
of religious, political, and civil life. It took form during the first two cen-
turies of Islamthat is, from the second quarter of the seventh century
to the middle of the ninth century A.D.and was based upon the inter-
working of three basic factors: the Qur'an, the sayings and traditions at-
tributed to the Prophet Muhammad (called hadith), and the customary
practices of the very early Muslim community (called sunnah).*
3. Muhammad 'AlT al-TahlnawT, Kashshdf isilahnt al-fitnUn, A Dictionary of Technical Terms Used in the
Sciences of the Musulnums, eds. Mawlawies Muhammad Wajih, Abd al-Haqq, and Gholam Kadir
(Bibliotheca Indica, II, i), 3 pa. (Calcutta: F. Carberry, Bengal Military Orphan Press, 1853-62), p. 735.
For al-Jaghrrfmr, also written Chaghmlnl, see C. A. Storey, Persian Literature, A Bio-bibliographical Survey
Volume II, Part 2 E: Medicine (London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1971), p.
219.
4. See Joseph Schacht, "Sharra," El2 (n. 1), IV, 320-24; Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964); N.J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1964); and P. W. Baker, "Islamic Legal Literature," in Religion, Learning, and Science in
the 'Abbasid Period, eds. M.J.L. Young, J. D. Latham, and R. B. Serjeant (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990), pp. 139-54. For an introduction to die hadith literature, see J. Robson,
70 Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January igg5
In the first century of Islam these were interpreted by judges, or qadis,
appointed by the Umayyad governors, and these early judges would on
occasion give their own discretionary opinion, or "sound judgement
(ra'y)." In the following century of Islam, that is, early in the eighth cen-
tury A.D., pious specialists in legal and moral matters endorsed, modified,
or rejected the interpretations of these earlier Umayyad qadis. At the
same time, others, called Traditionists, recorded all the traditions (hadiths)
about the Prophet, often incorporating decisions of the early Umayyad
judges in with the traditions themselves. This group felt that law should
be based only on the traditions and sayings of the Prophet, allowing for

no subsequent interpretation.
No codification of the law, in the modern or western sense, occurred.
Jurisprudence was developed and perpetuated through a system calledjuj/i,
in which muftis rendered legal opinions (fatwds) based upon their in-
terpretation of the Qur'an, the traditions related to the Prophet (hadiths),
the early customary practices (sunnah), and the opinions of earlier ex-
perts.5 Jurisprudence developed in three geographical areas: Iraq (in
Kufa and Basra), Syria, and what is now Saudi Arabia (Mecca and
Medina). By the end of the eighth century A.D. a number of "schools"
ofjurisprudence were identifiable, composed of followers of one partic-
ular early jurist. Four orthodox schools of law eventually proved to be
of particular importance: the HanafT school, the MalikJ, the Hanball,
and the Shafi'T. They differed in the weight each gave to the hadiths and
to various forms of reasoning, such as analogy, which were employed in
forming a ruling.
The HanafT school was based upon principles set forth in Kufa in Iraq
by Abu Hamfah (d. 150/767). The Malik! school centered on the in-
terpretations expounded in Medina by Malik ibn Anas (d. 179/795) m
his treatise titled Muwatta". The founder of the third major school, al-Sha
fi'T (d. 204/819), was also originally of the Medina school, but he
adopted the view that the hadiths, or traditions of the Prophet, had over-
riding authority. On the other hand, al-Shafi'T also set out a method of
legal reasoning relying to a large extent on analogy (qiyas), which be-
"Hadlth," El1 (n. i). III, 2327; and G.H.A.Juynboll, Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance
and Authorship of Early Hadlth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
5. See Joseph Schacrit, "Fikh," El2 (n. 1), II, 886-91; Reuben Levy, The Social Structure of Islam
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), especially chapters "Islamic Jurisprudence," pp.
130-91, and "Usage, Custom and Secular Law Under Islam," pp. 24270; and Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte
des arainschen Sdtrifttums, Band I: Qur'Unwissenschaften, Hadlth, Geschichte, Fiqh, Dogmalik, Mystik bis ca ^jo
H. (Leiden: Brill, 1967), pp. 391-586.
came a distinguishing feature of the legal school that subsequently
formed around his teachings and writings. One of his disciples, Ahmad
ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855), was the originator of the fourth major legal
school, and he accepted al-Shafi'1's reliance upon the authority of the
hadiths but denied the validity of employing reasoning, especially rea-
soning by analogy, in the legal decisions.
The Shafi'l school came to be associated particularly with medical
teaching, with many scholars trained in Shafi'l law also studying medi-
cine. Later writers credited al-Shafi'F himself with a knowledge of med-
icine and attributed to him a number of statements on the nature of

medicine. For example, the historian and theologian al-Dhahabl (d.
748/1348) said of him:
Al-Shafi'i said: "I do not know a field of learning ('Urn), other than [the deter-
mination of] what is lawful and what is unlawful, that is more noble than med-
icine." He deplored the fact that Muslims neglected medicine and said that they
ignored a third of learning and entrusted it to Jews and Christians. And he said:
"The people of the Book [i.e., Jews and Christians6] have achieved supremacy
over us in medicine."7
As jurisprudence developed, there arose a tension between those advo-
cating the total acceptance of doctrines laid down by a particular school
of law, called the principle of taqlid, and those who allowed the possi-
bility of independent reasoning (ijtihad). Yet in none of the early writ-
ings on jurisprudence or in the collections of hadiths does there seem to
be any mention of anatomy/dissection (tashrih), either approvingly or
disapprovingly.8
6. Protected non-Muslims were called ahl al-kitlb ("people of the Book") or ahl al-dhimmah and in-
cluded Christians and Jews and other adherents of revealed religions. They were given protection on
the condition that they acknowledged the domination of Islam and paid a tax Sec G. Vajda, "Ahl al-
kitfb," EP (n. 1), I, 264-66; Cl. Cahen, "Dhimma," EP (n. i), II, 227-31; and Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi:
Jews and Christians Under Islam. Translated from the French, trans. David Maiscl, Paul Fenton, and David
Liftman (London: Associated University Presses and Rutherford, N.J.: Fairlcigh Dickinson University
Press, 1985).
7. AbQ 'Abd Allih Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn 'UthmJn al-DhahabT, al-Tibb ai-nabawi, printed in the
margins of the Cairo editions of Ibrahim ibn 'Abd al-Rahmln ibn AbT Bakr al-Azraq, Tashti al-mandfi'
ft al-pbb wa-aJ-hihnah (Cairo: BOlIq, 1304/1887), p. 119, and (Cairo: Maktabat al-JumhurTyah al-'Arabl-
yah, 1367/1948), p. 125. A version of this quotation is repeated byjalil al-DTn 'Abd al-Rahmln al-Suyuff,
al-Manhaj al-sawf wa-al-manhal al-rawf ft al-ibb al-nabawf, ed. Hasan Muhammad MaqbdlT al-AhdaJ
(Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Kutub al-ThaqJftyah, and Sana: Maktabat al-JTl al-jadTd, 1986), p. 90. For aJ-
Dhahabr, see M. Ben Cheneb andj. de Somogyi, "al-Dhahabr," EP (n. 1), II, 214-16.
8. For example, in neither the Concordance el Indices de la Tradition Musulmane, cds. A. J. Wensinck,
J. P. Mensing, andj. Brugman, 8 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 193688), or in A. J. Wensinck, A Handbook of
Eaiiy Muhammadan Tradition, Alphabetically Arranged (Leiden: Brill, 1927), is there a mention of tashrth
or any other term that could be interpreted as dissection.
72 Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January 1995
Those hadith traditions that were concerned solely with medicine, and
the appropriate procedures allowed by Islamic law, were collected by
clerics into treatises known as books on prophetic medicine (al-tibb al-
nabawi). Dissection, either animal or human, is not, however, men-
tioned in the earliest of these medico-religious tracts, the ninth-century
ShTT treatise called The Medicine of the Imams,9 nor in the numerous
fourteenth- and fifteenth-century treatises on the subject.10
In some of the prophetic medicine treatises, there is an interesting ver-
sion of an hadith which in its later (and apparently corrupt) form would
indicate considerable support for the study of anatomy. Al-Dhahabl, an

adherent of the Shafi'I school ofjurisprudence, wrote:
It is related that the Prophet said "science [or learning, 'ilm] is twofold, the sci-
ence of bodies and the science of religions." This is not, however, a genuine
saying of the Prophet, but rather a saying of al-Shafi'T. Muhammad ibn Sahl [or
Suhayl] al-TusT testified that, according to al-Rabi', he [al-Shafi'T] said "There
are two classes indispensable to men, scholars for their religions and physicians
for their bodies." The Prophet, peace be upon him, said "Learning is threefold:
accurate recitation of Qur'anic verses, observing the customary practices (sun-
nah), and just religious duties. Whatever goes beyond that is superfluous." The
transmitter [of this tradition] is al-TirmidhT [d. 279/892] and Ibn Majah [d.
273/887].11
As is evident from this passage, the clerics compiling the prophetic
9. For an English translation, see [Banfln Bistlm ibn SJbOr], Islamic Medical Wisdom: The Tibb al-
A'imma, trans. Batool Ispahany, ed. Andrew J. Newman (London The Muhammadi Trust, 1991). The
ShTTs split from die orthodox or Sunn! form of Islam, but their interpretations of diose aspects of law
pertinent to die particular topic of dissection did not differ appreciably from those of the various or-
thodox schools of jurisprudence. For ShT'T law, see Hossein Modarressi TablrablT, An Introduction to
Shi1! Law: A Bibliographical Study (London: Ithaca Press, 1984).
10. For an introduction to the literature on prophetic medicine, see Andrew J. Newman's preface to
Islamic Medical Wisdom, (n. 9), pp. vnxxiii; J. Chnstoph BOrgel, "Secular and Religious Features of
Medieval Arabic Medicine," in Asian Medical Systems: A Comparative Study, ed. Charles Leslie (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1976), pp. 44-62, esp. pp. 54-61; Manfred UUmann, Medizin im Islam
(Handbuch der Orientalisok, Abteilung I, Erglnzungsband VI, Abschnitt 1) (Leiden: Brill, 1970), pp.
185-89; Irmeli Perho, "The use of die Koran and die Sunna in the medicine of die Prophet," Studia
Orientalia (Helsinki), 1988, 64, 131-43; Fazlur Rahman, Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition:
Change ana" Identity (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 41-49; and Michael Dob, "Islam
and medicine," History of Science, 1988, 26, 41725.
11. Al-Dhahabr, (n. 7) al-Tibb al-nabauA (Cairo 1304/1887), pp. 112-13 and (Cairo 1367/1948), p.
118. For die version of me Prophet's statement given by Ibn Majah, see Ibn MJjah, Sunan, ed. Muham-
mad Fu'Id 'Abd al-BJqT, 3 vols. (Cairo: Dir IhyJ' al-Kutub al-'Arablyah, 1954), I, 21 no. 54; die au-
dior wishes to thank Andrew J. Newman for his assistance in locating die text and passage. Al-TirmidhT
was anodieT important early transmitter of traditions', see Juynboll, (n. 4) Muslim Tradition, p. 110 et pas-
sim. The transmitters of die quotation by al-ShifiT are not so easily identified, mere being hundreds of
transmitters' names in die literature, many of whom are called al-RjbT*. For al-ShJfi'I, sec (no initials)
Heffening, "al-Shlfi'T," El1 (n. 1), IV, 252-54; and for Ibn M^ah, s e e j . W. Fuck, "Ibn MIdja," EP
(n. 1), III, 856.
medicine treatises were intent upon citing as many authorities as possi-
ble to document the attribution of a statement.
The saying "science is twofold, the science of bodies and the science
of religions" was often repeated, though without the attribution to al-
Shafi'1.12 The most influential Islamic theologian after the twelfth cen-
tury, Abu Hamid al-Ghazall (d. 505/1111), said, for example, in the dis-
course on knowledge that opens his Ihya' 'ulum al-dln (The Rewval of the
Religious Sciences):
Thus anyone who says that science is twofold, the science of bodies and the sci-
ence of religion, and by the latter means jurisprudence, has in mind the gen-
eral obvious sciences rather than the difficult obscure fields of learning.13

The treatise on prophetic medicine by al-Dhahabl (d. 748/1348) has
been wrongly attributed to a later writer on prophetic medicine, Jalal al-
Dln al-Suyuti (d. 911/1505), also of the Shafi'I school of law.14 In the
treatise that al-Suyuti did in fact write on prophetic medicine, titled
Manhaj sawi wa-al-manhal al-rawift al-tibb al-nabawi (An Easy Manual and
Refreshing Source for the Medicine of the Prophet), al-SuyutT begins by giv-
ing a slightly different chain of authorities leading back to al-Shafi'I:
. . . Abu Muhammad al-NashawarT told me that he was told by . . . that he
heard Muhammad ibn Ya'qflb say that he heard al-Rabl' say that he heard al-
ShafiT say "Science is twofold: die science of religions, jurisprudence (fiqh),
and the science of bodies, medicine (fi'fcfc)."15
12. See Levy, (n. 5) Social Structure, p. 458.
13. Al-GhazJlI, The Book of Knowledge being a Translation With Notes of the Kitib al-'ilm of al-Ghazzah's
Ihya' 'ulQm al-dln, trans. Nabih Amin Fans, 2nd ed. (Lahore: Muhammad Ashraf, 1966), p. 141 (trans-
lation emended by present author). For the Arabic text, see a]-GhazI)T, Ihyi" 'uiQm al-dln, 4 parts (Cairo.
Bdllq, 1278/1861), I, p. 58 line 33 to p. 59 line 1.
14. This incorrect attribution occurred primarily because Cynl Elgood translated the treatise into
English under the name Jalll al-Dln al-Suyflrl, though he stated that the manuscript used for his trans-
lation was attributed to one Aba Subymin; see Cyril Elgood, "Tibb-ul-Nabbi or Medicine of the
Prophet. Being a Translation of Two Works of the Same Name. I. The Tibb-ul-Nabbi of al-Suyuti. II.
The Tibb-ul-Nabbi of Mahmud bin Mohamed al-Chaghayni, together with Introduction, Notes and
a Glossary," Osiris, 1962, 14, 33-192 (see p. 124 for a variant translation of the passage given above). An
earlier French translation by A. Perron, La mfdedne du prophete (Paris: Bailliere, i860) gave the author as
Jalal-ul-Dfn abii Subymin Diwud. One manuscript copy of the treatise (Berlin MS We. 1200, entry
no. 6298) has an owner's note dated the equivalent of A.D. 1391, thus eliminating al-SuyOtT as a possi-
ble author. Most extant manuscript copies are either anonymous or give the author as Dl'Od ibn AbT
al-Farfj (Berlin MS We. 1200, entry no. 6298) or simply as Di'Od al-hakTm (Bethesda, National Library
of Medicine, MS A 32); only one manuscript attributes it, incorrectly, to al-SuyfltT (Berlin MS We.
1199, entry no. 6297). The text of the treatise has been printed in Cairo undeT the name of al-Dhahabl
on the margins of another treatise on prophetic medicine (see n. 7), and it was abo lithographed by it-
self under al-DhahabT's name (Cairo: n.p., 1870; the rare copy now in the British Library is incorrectly
catalogued under aJ-SuydfJ's name). The attribution to al-DhahabT seems reasonable, given me begin-
ning of the treatise.
1 j . Al-SuyflrJ, (n. 7) al-Manhaj al-sawl, p. 90. This edition is based on four copies of the treatise, but
Somewhat earlier, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, IbrShlm ibn
'Abd al-Rahman al-Azraq opened his treatise on prophetic medicine
with an expanded version of the saying that fails to mention al-
ShafiT as the source:
The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: "Science is twofold, the science of bod-
ies and the science of religions. Again, science is twofold, the science belong-
ing to religion and the science belonging to the world. As for that belonging
to religion, it is jurisprudence (fiqh), while the science that belongs to the world
is medicine (tibb)." And he also said: "There are two classes indispensable to
men, physicians for their bodies and scholars for their religions."16

Thus al-Azraq combines the saying with others by al-Sha"fi'T and attrib-
utes them all to the Prophet. In the seventeenth century the saying is
again repeated by Evliyl Chelebi in his description of medical care in
Egypt at that time.17
What is interesting from our standpoint is that the repeated citation of
the statement that there are in effect only two recognized areas of learn-
ingknowledge of bodies and knowledge of religionscould have
been used to help justify dissection for anatomical purposes, had a
Muslim wished to do so.18 Moreover, the treatises on prophetic medi-
cine that include these quotations also contain chapters devoted to the
knowledge of the parts of the human body and embryology. It must be
stressed again, however, that in these treatises there is no mention of dis-
section, either supporting it or opposing it.
In the numerous extant books on jurisprudence and hadith (prophetic
traditions), there are chapters on worship and ritual duties, family and
inheritance laws, criminal and penal codes, medicine, slaves, burial prac-
tices, juridical procedures and evidence, laws regarding food and the
slaughtering of animals, and war against unbelievers. Anatomy/dissec-
there are numerous other copies of the popular tract preserved today, an especially fine and early copy
being in Bethesda, Maryland, at the National Library of Medicine, MS A 41; see also Hakim Altaf
Ahmad Azmi, "A new manuscript on Prophet's medicine byjalll al-Dln al-SuyfltT," Studies in History
of Medicine and Science, 1985, 9 (nos. 3-4), 95-112. For al-SuyOtT, see C. Brockelmann, "SuyflrJ," El'
(n. 1), IV, 57375, and Anton M. Hcineri, Islamic Cosmology: A Study of As-Suyatr's al-Hay'a as-santya
ft l-hay'a as-sunnfya, with Critical Edition, Translation and Commentary (Beiruter Tcxte und Studien, 27)
(Beirut: In Kommission bei Franz Sterner Vcrlag, 1982).
16. Al-Azraq, (n. 7) Tashtl al-manttfi' (Cairo, 1367/1948), p. 2.
17. Gary Lciser and Michael Dob, "EvliyJ Chelebi's description of medicine in seventeenth-century
Egypt, Part II: Text," Sudhojb Archiv, 1988, 72, 49-68, p. 54. For Evliya Chelebi, sec J. H. Mordtmann
and H. W. Duda, "EwliyJ Celebi," EP (n. 1), II, 717-20.
18. See BQrgel (n. 10), p. 56, for a recent reliance upon this saying as a justification for a Muslim un-
dertaking anatomical studies.
tion is not specifically mentioned in any of the treatises surveyed, even
in the chapters on medicine, burial procedures, or penal codes where a
mention of it might be expected if in fact there were an interdiction
against it. There are, however, occasional statements indicative of atti-
tudes of clerics and jurisprudents towards the human corpse.
In the chapters on jihad (holy war against unbelievers), traditions are
given, through a chain of authorities, that the Prophet Muhammad
"urged us to charity (sadaqah) and prohibited us from mutilation (muth-
lah),"19 sometimes specifically admonishing against cutting off the
nose.20 In the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century the Syrian ju-

rist Ibn TaymTyah (d. 728/1328), of the HanbalT school, expanded on
the theme in his treatise on jurisprudence:
Certain jurists say that the condemned may be killed in a way other than strik-
ing of the sword; they even allow that the condemned may be left raised on [a
trunk or gibbet on] a high place until they expire in agony without being
killed. Mutilation is not permitted when a person is condemned to death. It is
only allowed when there is no intention of executing him. Bearing on this,
'Imr3n ibn Husayn, may God bless him, has related: "Every time the Messenger
of God [Muhammad], peace be upon him, has made among us a public speech
he has ordered us to distribute alms and forbade us to exercise mutilation."
Even the infidel, we do not disfigure their bodies after we have killed them;
we do not cut off their ears or their noses; we do not cut through their bellies,
unless they have done this to those of us [who fell on the batdefield], then we
make retaliation on them and mutilate the bodies of their dead. But to refrain
from that is better, as God has said: "And if you take your turn, then punish
with the like of that with which you were afflicted. But if you show patience,
it is certainly best for you. And be patient, and thy patience is not but by [the
help of] God" I Qur'an XVI, 126-71 -21
19 Aba DJ'Od al-SijistJnT, Sunm, kitib 16 (jihad) bib 110 (sec AbD DJ'Dd al-SijistJnr, Sunan Abl
Di'tti, cd. Ahmad Sa'd 'Air, 3 vols. (Cairo: Matba'at Mustafa al-BJbr al-Halabr wa-awlJdhi, 1371/
1952), II, 49), and Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Musnad with, on the margin, MuttaqT al-HindT's abridgement of
his own Kanz al-'ummtl, a compendium of al-SuyflrT's_/miJ/ al-jawdmi', 6 vols. (Cairo: BOlIq, 1311/
1895), IV, 246, 307, 428, 432, 436, 440, and V, 12 and 20. See also Rahman (n. 10), Health and Mcdiritu,
p. 106. For AbD DJ'Qd (d. 275/889), sec J. Robson, "Abu DJ'Od al-SidjistfnT," El1 (n. 1), I, 114, and
for Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 780-855), see H. Laoust," Ahmad b. Hanbal," El' (n. 1), I, 272-77.
20. Ahmad ibn Hanbal, (n. 19), IV, 429 and 439.
21. Ibn TaymTyah, Ibn Taimiyyah on Public ami Private Law in Islam, or Publk Policy in Islamic Juris-
prudence, trans. Omar A. Farrukh (Beirut: Khayats, 1966), p. 94; translation is that of Omar Farrukh,
with minor changes. A version of this quotation, without the source cited, is given by M G. Muazzam
as an example of sayings that "die religious leaders of die past used . . . to prevent the scienofic post-
mortem examination"; M. G. Muazzam, "The importance of the post-mortem examination and its
place in Muslim countries,"JIMA (The Journal of the Islamic Medical Association of North America),
1988, 20, 146-48, p. 146. For Ibn TaymTyah, see H. Laoust, "Ibn Taymiyya," El2 (n. 1), III, 951-53.
Compare the opinions of al-ShaybJnl, an eighth-century HanarT jurist, in al-ShaybJnT, The Islamic Law
76 Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January
Ibn TaymTyah explained that the verse from the Qur'Sn just cited was
revealed after the Prophet Muhammad vowed vengence upon his ene-
mies following the battle of Uhud fought in A.D. 625. In this battle, the
non-believing Meccans under the leadership of AbQ SufyJn inflicted a
severe defeat upon the Muslims, and, after the fighting ended, Hind, the
wife of Abu SufySn, tore the liver from the body of Hamzah, Muham-
mad's uncle and an early convert, as revenge for Hamzah having killed
her father in an earlier battle. In order to stop the cycle of revenge and
retaliation, the verse urging patience was revealed. Ibn TaymTyah then
gave another version of the Prophet's admonition against mutilation:

It is related in the $ahth of Muslim,22 on the authority of Buraydah ibn al-Hus-
ayb, may God bless him, that any time the Prophet, peace be upon him, sent a
commander at the head of a detachment or a whole army [on an expedition]
or on any other errand, he always advised him to have fear of God and to take
good care of the Muslims under his command. Then he used to address [all the
men on the expedition as follows]: "Proceed to war, in the name of God and
in His cause;fightthose who have disbelieved in God, but do not act with dis-
honesty nor betray [those with whom you come to an agreement] nor muti-
late [your opponents, dead or alive] nor kill a child."23
In the chapters on burial procedures (Jani'iz), the Prophet is attrib-
uted the sentiment that "breaking the bones of a person when dead is
like breaking them while they are living."2* MSlik ibn Anas, founder of
the MalikT school of jurisprudence in Medina, restricted it only to
Muslims, expressing it this way: "Yahya related to me from Mslik that
he had heard that 'A'ishah, the wife of the Prophet, may God bless him
and grant him peace, used to say, 'breaking the bone of the Muslim
when he is dead is like breaking it when he is alive.' She meant if done
in wrong action."25 Ahmad ibn Hanbal, after whom the HanbalT school
of Nations. ShaybdnT's Siyar, trans. Majid Khadduri (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), pp. 76, 92,
173, and 241.
22. Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (d. 261/875) compiled an early collection of prophetic traditions entitled
Sahlh. For his life and works, sec G.H.A. Juynboll, "Muslim b. al-Hadjdjadj," El2 (n. 1), VII, 691-92.
23. Ibn TaymTyah, (n. 21) Public and Private Law, p. 95; translation u that of Omar Farrukh, with mi-
nor changes.
24. Aba DJ'ad, Sunan, kiab 20 (jani'iz) bab 58 [Sunan, ed. "All (n. 19), II, 190], and Ibn Mljah,
Sutum, kiab 6 (jani'iz) 63 [Sunan, ed. al-Blqr (n. 11), I, J16].
25. Mllik ibn Anas, Muwatta', kitJb 16 (janj'iz) 45; MJlik ibn Anas, Ai-Muwatta of Imam Malik ibn
Anas: The First Formulation of Islamic Law, trans. Aisha Abdurraham Bewley (The Islamic Classical
Library) (London/New York: Kegan Paul, 1989), p. 91; translation given is that of Bewley. For the
Arabic text, see Mllik ibn Anas, al-Muwatla' with commentary Tanwir ai-hawilik by SuyOtT and the lat-
ter's Is'afal-mubatta' bi-rijal al-Muwatu', 2 vols. (Cairo: Matba'at al-Shaykh Mustafa al-BSbl al-Halabi
wa-awUdhi, 1349/1929), I, 185.
was named, also limited the prohibition only to the bones of a believer
(mu'miri).26
The application of such prohibitions only to the corpses of Muslims
can be seen in modern practices, such as a nineteenth-century cure for
ague in which Muslim Egyptian women would wear suspended around
their necks the finger of a Christian or Jew that had been cut offa corpse
and dried.27 In the twentieth century the ruling of the Ayatollah Kho-
meyni in Iran regarding the permissibility of dissection made use of the
same distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim cadavers:
A Muslim's corpse may not be dissected and when such is done it is unlawful,

and to sever his head and his other members calls for punishment. . . .
However, dissecting the corpse of a non-Muslim is acceptable and there is no
punishment whether he is of those who pay tribute or not [that is, a Christian
or Jew or other protected peoples of revealed religions].28
Medieval sources do not, however, mention dissection in this context,
though it might be argued that, by limiting the prohibition of breaking
bones to Muslim bodies, as some early jurists did, the ground was laid
for allowing dissection of non-Muslim corpses, had someone wished to
undertake it.
The chapters on burial procedures in the early writings on jurispru-
dence also censure grave robbers and people who dig up graves. For ex-
ample, Malik ibn Anas recorded the tradition that the Prophet "cursed
both men and women who dug up, meaning those who dug up
graves."29 It is not clear from the context what was being removed from
the grave, but it was likely property such as jewelry or clothing.
Certainly there is no specific mention of taking the corpse itself, and the
removal of legally owned property would be sufficient to bring down
condemnation.30
26. Ahmad ibn Hanbal, (n. 19) Musnad, VI, 58 and 264.
27. Lane, (n. 1) Modem Egyptians, p. 265.
28. Ayatollah Khomeini, Ayatullah Sayytd Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini, A Clarification of Questions' An
Unabridged Translation of Resalth Towzih ai-Masael, trans. J. Borujerdi (Boulder, Colorado/London:
Westvicw Press, 1984), p. 389 no. 2878, cf. nos. 2879-81; translation given is that of Borujerdi with mi-
nor changes.
29. Mllilc ibn Anas, Muwatta', lutJb 16 (janJ'iz) 44; Mllik ibn Anas, (n. 25) Muwatta', trans. Bewley,
p. 91; translation given is diat by Bewley.
30. Wael Hallaq, in his discussion of a syllogism given by al-Gharlll, translates the word nabbash as
body-snatcher rather than grave robber. Trus modern interpretation seems unjustified, particularly since
the hadlth under discussion and attributed to 'A'ishah reads: "The robber of the dead is just like the rob-
ber of the living"; see Wael B. Hallaq, "Logic, formal arguments and formalizarion of arguments in
SunnT jurisprudence," Arabia, 1990,^7, 315-58, pp. 343-45.
78 Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January 1995
The burial procedures mandated in the early legal writings included
washing the body, anointing it with camphor and spices, and burying it
as soon as possible, following the saying attributed to the Prophet,
"Prepare a funeral briskly, for should the deceased be righteous you
would speed him towards good and should he be otherwise you would
be laying aside evil from your necks."31 It is also likely that a warm cli-
mate encouraged rapid interment. Someone of the same sex washed the
body an uneven number of times, and, if disease made it unwise to touch
the body, it was considered sufficient to pour water over it. The corpse-
washer was held in fairly high esteem, for it was considered an act of
piety.32 After the body was dry, it was to be anointed with camphor and

spices. This latter process (hinatah) has usually been translated as "embalm-
ing," but it is substantially different from the ancient Egyptian practice
of embalming, for the internal organs remained intact and no incisions
were made on the corpse.33
It is unusual to find in the Islamic medical literature a discussion of the
"embalming" process, but Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn ZakarTya' al-RazI
(d. 313/925), known in Latin as Rhazes, included a short section titled
"On the Preservation of the Cadaver (Fi hifz juththat al-mayyit)" in his
Book of Medicine Dedicated to Mansur (Kitdb al-Tibb al-Mansiirf), a short
general medical textbook which he dedicated in 290/903 to the gover-
nor of the Iranian city of Rayy. According to al-R5zT, an enema of colo-
cynth oil and red borax was inserted into the rectum, and after the
cadaver was moved about vigorously, the abdomen was to be pressed
until the enema came out. This process was then repeated until all the
feces were evacuated. Cotton was soaked in a mixture of aloe, myrrh,
acacia, camphor, and other aromatic drugs and then used to plug all the
orifices of the body, except for the nostrils, for they were to be filled
with pure mercury (zaybaq). The joints were sprinkled with aloe,
myrrh, acacia, and other aromatic substances dissolved in vinegar and
31. Al-NawawT, Gardens of the Righteous: Riyadh as-Salihn of Imam Nawawi, Translated from the Arabic,
trans. Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, forword C. E. Bosworth (London: Curzon Press, 1975), p. 177; trans-
boon given is that by Khan. Al-NawawT (d. 677/1278) was a Syrian audionty on jurisprudence of the
Shifit school. See also, A. S. Tritton, "Djanlza," EP (n. 1), II, 441-42.
32. For the duties and social position of die corpse-washer (ghisit), see M.AJ. Beg, "Ghassll," EP (n.
1), Suppl., pp. 322-23; and al-NawawT, (n. 31) Gardens of the Righteous, p. 175.
33. For the ancient Egyptian embalming and burial practices, which seem to have had no influence
whatsoever on the later Islamic Egyptian practices, see A. J. Spencer, Death in Ancient Egypt (London:
Penguin Books, 1991). Similarly, me Sassanian custom in pre-Islamic Iran of removing die brain and
intestines was not continued in me Muslim community in Iran; see Cyril Elgood, Safavid Medical Practice
or The Practice of Medicine, Surgery and Gynaecology in Persia between i}oo A.D. and 1750 A.D. (London:
Luzac, 1970), p. 131, and idem, (n. 1) Medical History of Persia, p. 327.
rosewater with salt. Then, according to al-R5zT, "if the cadaver is laid
out on its face, its abdomen will not inflate, and if the nostrils are filled
with mercury the brains will not flow out. The cadaver will not become
corrupt if it is coated with juniper resins."34 Other sources say that cam-
phor is especially good for drying and hardening the corpse and keeping
away insects, and that it should be put on the eyes, nose, ears, navel, and
abdomen, under the chin and armpits, between the thighs, behind the
knees, and on the soles of the feet. Some placed a knife or weight on the
abdomen to keep it from inflating and bursting before interment.35 Such
procedures are quite different from what we today call embalming and
clearly gave no opportunity to examine internal structures, since no in-

cision was made and the organs were not removed from the body.
One might be mislead by a number of illustrations in Islamic manu-
scripts depicting births by Caesarian section to think that such operations
were performed by medieval Islamic surgeons.36 Certainly Caesarian
sections on a living woman for the delivery of a foetus were not per-
formed, for such an effort would have resulted in the certain death of
the woman. There is no mention in the surgical literature of such a pro-
cedure being attempted, even as a post-mortem effort to save the foetus
after the mother died. It has been argued by one historian that post-
mortem section on a dead mother to extract the foetus was condemned
by orthodox jurists "on the same grounds which forbade the study of
anatomy and dissection of the human body,"37 but, as usual, no sources
are cited to document this assertion. In the only medieval legal reference
to post-mortem section that has so far come to my attention, the ShT*T
jurist Muhammad ibn Muslim al-Thaqafi (d. 150/767) is said to have
told a woman who came to him in the middle of the night concerned
34. MS Marsh 376, folios 1 i 6 b - i 17a, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Department of Oriental Books. See
also Martin Levey, "A note on embalming procedures of al-Raa," Pharmacy in History, 1970, 12, 169.
35. A. S. Trirton, "Knlta," EP (n. 1), III, 403-04.
36. The illustration of the birth of Julius Caesar in a manuscript, copied in 707/1307 (University of
Edinburgh, MS Or. 16, folio 6b), of a history written by the versatile scholar AbD al-Rayhln al-BTrdnT
(d.440/1048) has been frequently reproduced; see, e.g., Manfred UUmann, Islamic Medicine (Islamic
Surveys 11) (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978), opposite p. 34. Over this miniature there
is written in Arabic the statement: "The reason for this was that his mother died in labour while she was
pregnant with him; so her abdomen was opened, and he was taken out." There are also numerous il-
lustrations of the birth of the mythical hero Rustam in manuscripts of the popular Persian poem
ShJhnJmah {Book of Kings) by Firdawsr, written at the end of the tenth century, in which it is said that
the mother was given a drug to stupefy her and that she recovered fully from the operation. The illus-
trations, such as that in St. Andrews University MS Or. 28 folio 52a, are highly inaccurate anatomically
and are intended merely as illustrations of a legend attributing to its hero a miraculous birth, a common
attribute in antiquity for great men.
37. Elgood, (n. 33) Safavid Medical Practice, p. 266.
about her daughter who had died in labor that it was permitted for the
womb of the dead woman to be torn open and the child taken out.38
Such post-mortem openings of the abdomen, if and when they were
undertaken, would have been done rapidly and for the purpose of
quickly taking out the foetus, not for the examination of internal organs,
and were most likely not performed by a physician well-schooled in
anatomy and thus able to appreciate any anatomical difference that
might have been observed. In any case, there is no evidence that such
post-mortem surgical intervention yielded any anatomical knowledge.
The chapters on penal codes in the treatises on jurisprudence also fail
to mention either the examination or the dissection of a cadaver. There

are five offenses prohibited by the Qur'Sn: theft, highway robbery,
drinking of intoxicants, unlawful sexual intercourse, and false accusation
of such intercourse.39 Variations in these offenses generally occupy the
section on penal codes. Other actions could be classified in one of five
ways: (1) prescribed or advocated, (2) meritorious, (3) indifferent and
hence permitted, (4) reprehensible or disapproved of, but not punish-
able, and (5) forbidden and punishable.40 Mutilation of the body, as we
have seen, was disapproved of in Islam, and yet it was frequently carried
out, especially as part of the penal system employing the amputation of
a hand or foot and in cruel methods of execution, such as crucifixion or
cutting into half at the waist/ 1 Other acts for which a punishment was
prescribed, such as usury, were often practiced anyway. There was, in
fact, an entire genre of legalistic literature, called hiydl, which was de-
voted to stratagems that could be employed to avoid punishment for a
prohibited act. Moreover, there was a classical juristic principle recog-
nized by all schools ofjurisprudence that the needs of the living human
had priority over those of the dead, and that the prohibited was permit-
ted when leading to the good of the people.42
38. Al-Thaqafl gave as a basis for his ruling the fact that he had earlier asked this question of al-B3qir
(d. 113/732), the fifth Imlm recognized by the Shits, and had received an affirmative ruling; see
Abdulazziz Abdulhussein Sachedina, The Just Ruler (al-sulMn al-'ddit) m Shr'iu Islam: The Comprehensive
Authority qfthejunst in ImamiteJurisprudence (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 50.
I wish to thank Andrew J. Newman for bringing this passage to my attention.
39- See B. Carra de Vaux andj. Schacht, "Hadd," EP (n. 1), III, 20-22; MHik ibn Anas, (n. 25)
Muwatta' trans. Bcwley, pp. 344-54; and al-ShJfil, Islamic Jurisprudence: Shifi'T's RisSla, Translated with
the Introduction, Notes and Appendices, trans. Majid Khadduri (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1961), pp. 173-239-
40. Schacht, (n. 4) "SharT'a," p. 322.
41. Ibn al-Nafts, The Theologus Autodidaaus of Ibn al-Nqfts, Edited with an Introduction, Transhtion and
Notes, ed. and trans. Max Meycrhof and Joseph Schacht (Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1968), pp. 81-82.
42. Rahman, (n. 10) Health and Medicine, p. 107; and Ismail R. al-RtrOql and Lois Lamyl' al-Flruql,
The Cultural Atlas of Islam (New York: Macmillan, and London: Colliers, 1986), p. 325.
Such purposeful avoidance of punishment would, it seems, have been
unnecessary in the case of one wishing to undertake dissection, how-
ever, for tashrlh appears never to have been actually prohibited. Further-
more, had one questioned its legitimacy, the argument of its ultimate
benefit to the living community might have weighed heavily in its fa-
vor among some jurists. Before leaving the topic of the literature of
Islamic jurisprudence, attention should also be drawn to the apparent
lack of any mention of post-mortem examinations to determine cause of
death. In fact, it would appear that the cause of death was a subject of
relatively little concern to jurists in medieval Islam.43

There is another class of treatise where one might also expect to find
mention of an interdiction against dissection, if such a thing did exist,
and that is the number of manuals written as guides for a muhtasib, or
Inspector of Public Services, in the performance of his duties.44 It was
one of the duties of the muhtasib to guard against fraudulent and illegal
practices not only among craftsmen but among pharmacists, surgeons,
physicians, oculists, phlebotomists, cuppers, those maintaining hammams
(public hot baths), and those concerned with burial rites. Some of his re-
sponsibilities might include seeing that correct weights and measures
were employed, insisting upon proper street cleaning, seeing that a ram-
shackle building was condemned, ensuring a supply of clean water, and
other related matters, but the functions differed to some extent in vari-
ous localities. Prior to the twelfth century the manuals for the muhtasibs
only briefly mentioned the medical professions, and then mostly in
relation to matters of drugs, weights, and measures. During the reign of
Saladin, however, a physician working in Aleppo by the name of
al-ShayzarT (d. 589/1193) wrote a manual for a muhtasib in which he
discussed in considerable detail the supervising of the medical commu-
nity. Perhaps the fact that al-Shayzarl was himself a physician rather than
a jurist, as most authors of such manuals were, was the reason why he
devoted more space to regulations regarding the medical profession.
43. According to Elgood, there wn one post-mortem examination in Baghdad at which a jurist re-
lied upon pulling out the hairs of the beard on the corpse and examining them to determine if the death
was by natural causes, but Elgood supplies neither the time of the event nor documentation for the story,
see Elgood, (n. 33) Safavid Medical Praaict, p. 131, and idem, (n. 1) Medical History of Persia, p. 327.
44. For the hisbah system, for which the manuals were written, see Nicola Ziyadeh, ai-Hisbah wa-al-
muhtasibfi al-Isldm (NusOs wa-darOs, 21) (Beirut: Catholic Press, 1963); Martin Levey, "Fourteenth
century Muslim medicine and the Hisba," Mtd. Hist., 1963, 7, 187-92; S. K. Hamameh, "Origin and
functions of the Hisbah System in Islam and its impact on the health professions," Sudhofjs Ardtiv, 1964,
48, 157-^73; Levy, (n. 5) Social Structure, pp. 33538; and Patricia Crone, Roman, Provincial and Islamic
Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patnmau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 109-10,
Appendix 3: The Muhtasib.
For surgeons (al-jara'ihiyun) al-ShayzarT stated that they must "know
al-tashrfh (anatomy/dissection) and the parts of the human body, and the
muscles, veins, arteries, and nerves that are in them, so that they will
avoid them when opening abscesses or excising haemorrhoids."45 In the
chapter dealing with regulations for phlebotomists and cuppers, he said
that a phlebotomist must know "the anatomy/dissection of the parts,
and the veins, muscles and arteries,"46 lest he make a mistake and cut one
of them, and al-ShayzarT goes ahead to recommend that they practice
incisions with a lancet on the veins in beetroot leaves or similar leaves.
In the first instance, when speaking of surgeons, al-ShayzarT has used the

term al-tashrth in such a way that it might be interpreted as an activity
distinct from simple knowledge of the bodily parts, but in the second in-
stance the expression tashrfh al-a 'dd' is completely ambiguous and may
simply mean general anatomical knowledge without any experience of
dissecting. If al-ShayzarT had in mind the learning of anatomy through
dissection, either animal or human, he did not make it clear, but neither
did he condemn such a practice. Late in the following century nearly all
the statements given by al-ShayzarT were repeated verbatim by an
Egyptian jurist named Ibn Ukhuwwah (d. 729/1329) in another manual
for a muhtasib.*7
Having reviewed some of the early legal literature (keeping in mind
that only a small portion has been studied by scholars), we can tenta-
tively conclude that, from a legalistic viewpoint, human post-mortem
dissection was not an impossibility within the medieval Islamic world. It
seems that there was no actual prohibition in Islam against dissection or
post-mortem examination. Revelation as preserved in the Qur'a"n was
silent on the subject of dissection, and the matter would have been left
to jurists using legal reasoning to determine its appropriateness. The lack
of interest in the subject displayed by early theologians and legal au-
thorities is impressive. Silence on the subject by clerics and jurists can,
of course, mean many things, not the least of which is that they may
have felt no need to comment on its legitimacy because it was a matter
that never came up and was perhaps not even contemplated in Islamic
45. 'Abd al-Rahmln ibn Nasr al-ShayzarT, Nihdyat al-ruibchfr talab al-lnsbah, ed. al-Sayyid al-Blz al-
'AiW (Cairo: Association of Authorship, Translation, and Publication Press, 1946), p. 101 (bib 37).
46. Ibid., p. 89 (bib 36).
47. Ibn Ukhuwwah, The Ma 'ilim al-qurbaft ahkim al-hisba o/Diya' al-Dln Multammad ibn Muhammad
al-Qurashr al-ShJfi'I, known as Ibn Ukhuwwa. Edited, with Abstract of Contents, Glossary and Indices, ed.
Reuben Levy (E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Series, n.s., 12) (London: Luzac, 1938), p. 59 (bib 45) and Arabic
p. 169, and p. 54 (bib 44) and Arabic p. 159.
culture. To evaluate the latter interpretation, however, we must look at
statements regarding dissection which are found in writings by or about
professional medical practitioners and other learned scholars.
A review of medieval Islamic medical literature reveals two periods of
considerable interest in the subject of human anatomy and dissection:
the ninth century and the twelfth-thirteenth century A.D. Early in the
ninth century there was established in Baghdad a foundation called The
House of Wisdom (bayt al-hikmah). Its purpose was to promote the
translation of Greek scientific and medical texts, and an embassy was sent
to Constantinople to acquire such material. Placed at the head of this in-

stitution was a Nestorian Christian physician by the name of Abi3 ZakarT
ya' ibn MSsawayh (d. 243/857). He was personal physician to four suc-
cessive caliphs and spent nearly his entire life in Baghdad and Samarra, a
town about seventy miles north of Baghdad. Ibn MSsawayh acquired a
reputation for repartee and was noted for his sharp wit.
Two stories in the medieval biobibliographical literature relating to
Ibn MSsawayh are of particular interest for our purposes. In the first one,
Ibn MSsawayh, speaking in the first person, relates to another physician
a story about himself and his son. He says of himself:
I have a long face, a high cranium, a broad forehead, and blue eyes, and I was
endowed with intelligence and a memory for everything that takes place within
my hearing. The daughter of al-TayfdrT was my wife, the mother of my son,
and the most beautiful woman whom I had seen or heard of, although she was
stupid and simple-minded, not comprehending what she said and not under-
standing what was said to her. So her son received all of our bad qualities and
was not endowed with any of our handsome qualities, and if it had not been
for the great meddling of the sultan and his entering into what did not concern
him, I would have dissected this son of mine while living, just as Galen dis-
sected humans and apes (qurild), so that I might learn by means of his dissec-
tion (tashrfh) the causes of his stupidity, and he would have been released from
his condition in this world. Furthermore, I would have won acclaim for her
family by what I would record in my book about the structure of his body and
the pathways of his arteries and veins and nerves, describing it as a science. But
the sultan prevented mat.48
48. Ibn al-Qiftr, Ta'rJkh al-hukaml', ed. Julius Lippert (Leipzig; Dietench'sche Veriagsbuchhandlung,
>9O3)i PP- 39O-9I- This account oflbn Mlsawayh given by al-QiftT (d. 646/1248) was repeated by Ibn
AbT Usaybi'ah (d. 668/1270) in his bio-bibliographical history of physicians; Ibn AbT Usaybi'ah, Kitdb
'UyHn al-anbi' fi labaqilt al-atibbJ', ed. August MQller, 2 vols. (Cairo: Mafba'at al-WahabTyah and
Konigsberg: Selbstverlag, 1882-84), ', 180. For Ibn al-Qifff, see A. Dietrich, "Ibn al-KiftT," EP (n. 1),
III, 840, and for Ibn AbT Usaybi'ah, see J. Vemet, "Ibn AbT Usaybi'a," El1 (n. 1), III, 693-94.
Translation is based on text of al-Qiftr's.
The narrator of this account says that another physician, one AbO
al-Hasan Yusuf, was present when Ibn MSsawayh told it, and that he in
turn told Ibn MSsawayh's father-in-law, al-TayfurT, what had been said,
with the result that al-TayfQrT became angry with Ibn MSsawayh. The
narrator then continues by saying that the child's name was MSsawayh
ibn Yflhanna" ibn MSsawayh and that he was a luckless child, stupid, and
of little cleverness, but that his father, Yflhanna" ibn MSsawayh, showed
love for him in a protective way.
So al-TayfflrT [Yflhanna' ibn MSsawayh's fadier-in-law] made a new start and
hid that difference between them over what had been said in die gathering just

mentioned. But it happened that [the child] MJsawayh ibn YilhannS ibn
MSsawayh fell ill a few nights after the previous story. A messenger from al-
Mu'tasim arrived from Damascus, where he was with [die caliph] al-Ma'm0n,
in order to dispatch Yuhanna" ibn MJsawayh to him. So YflhannS decided to
bleed his son MSsawayh, but the opinion of al-Tayfu"rT his grandfather was op-
posed to the opinion of YohannS his parent, along with his mother and his two
uncles ZakarTyS' and Djnyll. Nonedieless, Yu-hann5 bled him and left that day
for Syria. MSsawayh ibn Yflhanna" died three days after the departure of his fa-
ther.49 So at the funeral procession al-TayfilrT, die grandfather, and his two sons
swore by God that Yflhanna" [ibn MSsawayh] had intended to kill him [the
boy], and they gave as proof what Abu" al-Hasan YGsuf had related regarding
the story told in die house of Harfln ibn SulaymJn.50
In this account of a proposed vivisection of his own son, probably in-
tended for rhetorical and shock effect, Ibn Masawayh indicates a belief
that Galen was able to dissect humans in the second century A.D. The
reference to apes in the Galenic writings refers, of course, not to the
great apes or anthropoids, which were then unknown, but to Barbary
Apes (Macaca syhanus) and Hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas).5*
The second story regarding Ibn MSsawayh, concerned this time with
animal rather than human dissection, is narrated by a physician named
Yusuf. The event supposedly took place several years after the preced-
ing story, when al-Mu'tasim (reg. 218227/833842) had succeeded al-
Ma'mfln (reg. 198-218/813-833) as caliph:
49. Ibn AbT Usaybi'ah, (n. 48), I, 180, says that Ibn Mlsawayh left on the second day and that his son
died on the third day.
50. Ibn al-QiftT, (n. 48) Ta'tikh, p. 391.
51. Sometimes written as Macaca syhxma. For ancient and medieval knowledge of simian primates, see
the historical chapter in W. C. Osman Hill, Primates; Comparative Anatomy ond Taxonomy, Vol. VI:
Catarrhini, Cerwpithewiiea, Cempithetinae. A Monograph (New York: Intersaence Publishers, John
Wiley and Sons, 1966), pp. 327, esp. pp. 3-15.
The Nubian chief Jarjah ibn Zakarrya"' arrived at Samarra in the month of
Ramadln in the year 221 [= 18 August to 16 September 836 A.D.], and he pre-
sented to [the Caliph] al-Mu'tasim some gifts, among which were apes (qurud).
I was with Yflhanna" [Ibn MSsawayh] on the second day of the month of
ShawwSl in that year [= 18 September 836], and I was rebuking him for stay-
ing away from our house, for I had seen the physicians Salmawayh and
BukhtTshfl' and JarTsh and they had all visited," when one of the Turkish ser-
vants came to us, and with him was one of the apes which the ruler of Nubia
had brought as presents. I do not think I have ever seen a larger body (Juththah).
He [the servant] said, "The Commander of die Faithful [i.e., the Caliph] says for
you to mate this ape with die all-blacks of your apes," for YuhannS [Ibn MSsawayh]

had apes which he called all-blacks (hammdhumm), and he was forever tending to
diem.
He [Ibn MSsawayh] was [at first] speechless at diis, but then he said to the
messenger: "Tell the Commander of the Faithful that my keeping these apes is
not for the reason die Commander of die Faithful thinks. Rather, I had under-
taken their dissection and die composition of a book in the style of Galen's
writing on anatomy, [and] the glory of my composition will be for him, the
Commander of the Faidiful. But in their bodies, the arteries are small and the
veins and nerves thin, and I had no hope that die elucidation of the matters in
these [apes] would be like his [Galen's] explanation using his large bodies. So I
left them alone so diat they might grow large and their bodies thicken.
However, since this ape has been provided, the Commander of the Faithful
should be informed that I will write for him a book the likes of which has never
been written in Islam."
[The narrator continues.] Then he did that with the ape and published a
book on it that was so excellent that even his enemies praised it, much less his
friends."
This treatise by Ibn Masawayh on anatomy, based on his own dissec-
tions, has not yet been identified. He was a prolific and original medical
writer, though the only recorded treatise of his specifically on anatomy
52. Salmawayh ibn Bunln (d. 225/840) was a Christian court physician to the Caliph al-Mu'tasim,
while BukhtTshO' (d. 257/870) was the fourth generation of physicians from the prominent family of
Nestorian Christians who served caliphs as advisors and physicians from the mid-eighth century unol
the second half of the eleventh century. For these two physicians, see Fuat Sezgin, Gesdtichtc da arabis-
chen Schrifitums, Band III: Medizin-Pharmazie-Zoobgie-Tierheilkunde bis ca. 430 H. (Leiden: Brill, 1970),
pp. 227 and 243. The physicians JarTsh is unidentified.
53. Ibn AbT Usaybi'ah, (n. 48) 'UyHn al-anbi', I, 178. This story is missing in earlier accounts and is
therefore somewhat suspect, though Ibn Abl Usaybi'ah may have had access to different sources. This
passage is also translated by Cyril Elgood, (n. 1) Medical Hulory ofPeniu, p. 328 and idem, (n. }}) Safavid
Medial Practice, pp. 130-31. E. G. Browne regarded this story as lacking in sufficient authority and re-
liability to be used as evidence for animal dissection in Baghdad; see E. G. Browne, Arabum Medicine
(Cambridge: University Press, 1921 reprinted 1962), pp. 36-37.
is preserved in a single manuscript that early in this century was in a pri-
vate collection in Aleppo, Syria, and that, unfortunately, has never been
studied.M
Thirteenth-century biographical dictionaries are rich in such anecdo-
tal accounts of the lives of earlier physicians, and they reflect the view
held by thirteenth-century writers of the ninth-century, dominantly
Christian, medical communities of Syria and Iraq. The Syriac-speaking
Christian communities of ninth-century Baghdad had contacts with
other Christian communities in Mesopotamia, western Persia, greater
Syria, and Byzantium, and it seems likely that their attitudes might well
have been influenced by ideas current or just beginning to stir among

the eastern Mediterranean Christian communities.
The ninth century also saw the translation into Arabic of the anatom-
ical writings of Galen, which formed the basis of all subsequent anatom-
ical treatises in Islam. The treatises of Galen were translated into Arabic,
often through a Syriac version, by Hunayn ibn Ishacj and his son IshSq
and nephew Hubaysh. Hunayn was another Nestorian Christian physi-
cian in Baghdad who began translating at the age of seventeen under the
direction of Ibn Masawayh, and he produced, in collaboration with his
nephew and son, a truly prodigious amount of work before his death in
either 260/873 or 264/877. It is evident that YGhanna" ibn MSsawayh
was particularly interested in obtaining translations of Galen's anatomi-
cal writings, for he specifically requested that Hunayn or his nephew
Hubaysh prepare for him Syriac versions of Galen's major work on
anatomy and dissection, On Anatomical Procedures,iS as well as some of his
54. For this manuscript of Ibn Mlsawayh's Kitib al-tashrth, see Sezgin, (n. 52) Medizin-Pharmazie, pp.
231-36, esp. p. 235 entry no. 29; for other writings, see Ullmann, (n. 10) Medizin im Islam, pp. 112-15.
55. f t 'amal al-tashrTh(De anatomicis administrationibus); see G. BeTgstrlsser, Hunain ibn Ishiq Ober die
syrischen und arabischen Galen-Obersetzungen zum ersten Mai herausgegtben und abersetzt (Abhandlungen filr
die Kunde des Morgenlandes, XVII, 2) (Leipzig: In Kommission bei F. A. Brockhaus, 1925), p. 15 no.
21 and Arabic p. 19; and Sezgin, (n. 52) Medizin-Pharmazie, pp. 98100 no. 21. The last seven books of
the treatise are preserved only in Arabic, and Max Simon edited and translated these seven books into
German: Galen, Sieben BQcher Arutomie da Galen zur ersten Male veriffentlkht nach den Handschrifien einer
Arabischer Obenetzung des 9-Jhr. n. Chr in Deutsche Obertragen und Kommentien, ed. and trans. Max Simon,
2 vols. (Leipzig: Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1906). W.L.H. Duckworth prepared an Engluh transla-
tion of Simon's text; Galen, Galen On Anatomical Procedures, the Later Books, trans. W.L.H. Duckworth,
ed. M. C. Lyons and B. Towers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962). The books preserved
in Greek were translated into English by Charles Singer, Galen, Galen On Anatomical Procedures
(Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, n j . , 7) (London: Oxford University Press, 1956); the Arabic
version of these books has not been published. The Syriac version is lost, and Hunayn docs not men-
tion who prepared the Arabic. The medieval bibliographic sources state that his nephew Hubaysh trans-
lated it into Arabic, but extant manuscripts attribute it to Hunayn himself (for example, MS Marsh 158
folio 406a, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Department of Oriental Books).
smaller anatomical works such as On Bones for Beginners,56 On Disagree-
ments that Occur Regarding Dissection/Anatomy, On the Anatomy of the Vocal
Organs, On the Anatomy of the Eye, On the Movement of the Chest and
Lungs, and On the Voice.57
O f interest for our purposes is the manner in which Hunayn and his
collaborators translated Galen's refrences to dissectionboth the nu-
merous accounts of animal dissection and vivisection and the occasional
recommendation of human dissection. An examination of relevant pas-
sages in the Arabic translation of Galen's On Anatomical Procedures
demonstrates that the translator rendered the passages precisely into
Arabic, with no hesitation and no comment. For example, in the third

book of On Anatomical Procedures Galen says the following, according to
the Arabic translation:
It may be possible for you too see all of these blood vessels clearly visible be-
fore dissection on many men in whom there is combined the fact that they are
very thin and at the same time they have an abundance of blood, and whose
bloodvessels are large; but it is necessary that the air be hot or that those men
have [just] bathed. Then you lower his arm and apply a tourniquet to the place
where you wish to see the vessels engorged. This is something that is prefer-
able for you to do very often and on many people, for in that way you achieve
two purposes in which the benefits are not slight. The first of these is the
knowledge regarding the vessels, for nothing perceptible through the senses is
known quickly with certain knowledge unless it is seen many timesa fact
which is illustrated in human twins, when one resembles the other with such
extraordinary similarity that someone not intimate, upon seeing them, is not
able to tell between them, while one who has known them intimately and sees
them, then they can quickly recognize them and immediately tell one from the
other. The second [of the purposes] is the confirmation and acceptance of the
56. f t al-'iztm li-l-muta'allimln (De ossibus ad drones); see Bergstrfsscr, (n. 55) Hunain ibn IshHq, p. 6
no. 7 and Arabic pp. 7-9, and Sezgin, (n. 52) Mediztn-Pharmazic, pp. 83-84 no. 7. For an English trans-
lation of the Greek text, see Charles Singer, "Galen's elementary course on bones," Pwcetdings ofthe
Royal Society of Mediant, 1952, 4}, 767-76, and Michael Garrett Moore, Galen, Introduction to the Bones:
A Critical Edition with Translation and Indices, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
1969. Manuscripts containing the Arabic translation are unpublished and unavailable for study. The
Syriac version has not survived.
57. R-mtt watsa'a min al-ikhtiliffi al-tashrfh, R tashrfhalit al-sawt, Fr tashrlhal-'ayn, Ft harakat al-sadr
wa-al-ri'ah, and Ft al-sawt. Neither the Greek, Arabic, nor Syriac translations of these five treatises sur-
vive today, but only a Latin version of Dt motu thorads et pulmonis a preserved; see BergstrJsser, (n. 55)
Hunain ibn Ishlq, p. 16 no. 24, p. 18 nos. 34 and 35, p. 19 nos. 36 and 38; and Sexgin (n. 52) Medizm-
Phamazie.p. 133 no. 132, pp. 101-02 no. 27, pp. 134-35 no. 137, and p. 103 no. 30. For other anatom-
ical writings of Galen available in the Islamic world through Syriac or Arabic translation, see Sezgin, (n.
52) Medizin-Pharmazie, pp. 83-85, 100-08, 13235, and for Alexandrian summaries, p. 148. See also
A. Z. Iskandar, "An attempted reconstruction of the late Alexandrian medical curriculum," Med. Hist.,
1976, IO, 235-58.
fact that the parts of the human body precisely resemble the bodily parts of the
ape. For it follows from the fact that all the bloodvessels you find visible on the
surface of human bodies before dissection you will see in apes during dissec-
tion. And if matters are like that, then it is reasonable that the vessels whose po-
sitions are deep in human bodies and those similarly placed in the bodies of apes
follow the same pattern.
For this reason I wish you to proceed to practice many times on the bodies
of apes yourself, so that if it were to happen to you that you were able to dis-
sect a human body, you would be able with little effort to disclose the parts one
by one. But that is a matter not for the unprepared, for no one is able to come
suddenly upon a human body and understand it when they are one of those
who have not practiced and drilled in this procedure, as is illustrated by the fact

that anatomists (ashab al-tashrlh) have undertaken practice and great effort and
have gone to the greatest lengths in the examination and concerned themselves
with the bodily parts with great meticulousness, [yet] we find them to have
overlooked many things.
For this reason also, those people who dissected the body of the German sol-
dier (jarmanlis al-muqdtil), who died in the war [the Gallic wars, 5851 B.C.]
which took place at the time of Marcus Antoninus (Mdrqus AnfUnifUs), were
not able to learn from the man anything more than the position of the intestines
(ahshd'). As for one who has practiced beforehand, especially on bodies [of
apes], then he will reveal each of the parts which he dissects with little effort.
[As for] the man willing to undertake the drudgery, having practiced and
drilled beforehand on dissection, when he examines something quickly in
the human cadaver (juththat al-insdn mayyit), the understanding and compre-
hension of it will be easy for himmore so than for another who is not prac-
ticed and not accustomed to deducing something accurately, even if it is
analogous [to something else] and [even if] he examines it carefully and for a
long time.
It often happened that there were things that people wished to examine and
so they looked quickly for diem, time after time, in die bodies of men who had
been sentenced to death and [their bodies] thrown away to the corrupt animals
[scavengers], and in the bodies of thieves which were discarded unburied on
die mountain. Similarly, wounds that are large, and ulcers that have festered in
the depths of the body, [may] have also exposed many parts which those who
have had experience beforehand observed and recognized that their appearance
was exactly like the appearance of the bodily parts of apes, while those who had
no experience gained no advantage from their observing them. Many people
also had many times dissected aborted infants, and so it was disclosed to diem
diat the human form is like that of the ape body. The resemblance is also made
clear to those who previously undertook practice in die use of a lancet (ba(()
and surgery (shaqq) with extensive experience, for sometimes in cutting away
necroticfleshand sometimes in cutting bones, its similarity is not hidden to one
with previous experience.58
This passage contains the only change on the part of an Arabic transla-
tor so far noted when rendering the original Greek (or perhaps the now
lost Syriac intermediate version) of a passage concerned with dissection,
for here the translator has changed the Greek phrase "dissecting many
children who have died from exposure" into "aborted infants."59
Infanticide was unequivocally prohibited in several verses of the Qur'5n
and viewed by medieval scholars as a practice typical of the excesses and
barbarism of the pagan Arabs at the time of the JahilTyah, before Islam.
Abortion, especially if in the later stages of pregnancy, was also consid-

ered a crime in Islam, though it was more tolerated than infanticide. The
reoccurrence in later legal literature of arguments against infanticide
strongly suggests its continued practice in medieval Islam.60 It remains
unknown what the view of the Nestorian Christian translator would
have been regarding the relative acceptability of dissecting an aborted
foetus rather than an exposed child.
From this and similar passages, it is evident that there was no revul-
sion to the basic idea of human dissection on the part of the translator.
Such unambiguous and uncritical rendering of references to human
dissection implies that, in ninth-century Baghdad, at least among the
community of Christian physicians, the idea may not have been repug-
nant or unthinkable.
The second chapter of the opening book in the treatise On Anatomical
Procedures concerns the best ways to examine human skeletons, recom-
mending Alexandria as a place where skeletons could be obtained,61
58. MS Marsh 158, folios 45134523, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Department of Oriental Books; MS
Add. 23406, folios 49a50a, London, British Library, Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed
Books; and Coll. 1062, MS Ar. 90, pp. 86-88, UCLA, Biomedical Library, Special Collections; trans-
lation is by the present author. For the Greek text, see Anat. admin. Ill, 5, in Galen, Chtudii Galeni Opera
Omnia, ed. C. G. KQhn, 20 vols. (Leipzig; In omcina Libraria Car. Cnoblochii, 1821-30, reprinted
Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965), II, 38386; for English translation of Greek, sec Galen, (n. 55) On
Anatomical Procedures, trans. Singer, pp. 7677.
59. For the Greek ITaiSla St T&V eVnOeuiitov veicpd, sec Galen, (n. 58) Opera Omnia, II, 386
line 5; English translation by Singer, Galen (n. 55) On Anatomical Procedures, trans. Singer, p. 77. The
Arabic word used for aborted, isqatin, is a verbal noun from the fourth form of the root s-a-l, meaning
to purposely abort a foetus and also to have a miscarriage. The Arabic translator did not use the usual
word for foetus, which one might expect in diis context, but kept the Arabic equivalent of infant,
atfllln, which can also mean children in general.
60. Avncr Giladi, "Some observations on infanticide in medieval Muslim society," Int. J. Middle East
Stud., 1990, 22, 185-200; and idem, "Infants, children and death in medieval Muslim society," Soc. Hist.
Med., 1990,3, 345-68, pp. 358-61.
61. Anat. admin. I, 2; Galen, (n. 55) On Anatomical Procedures, trans. Singer, pp. 2-5.
while the second chapter of the following book discusses the importance
and usefulness of dissection for both philosophers and physicians.62
There are other passages as well in the treatise where Galen specifically
recommends dissection of human cadavers63 and a remarkable passage in
which it is said that a slave of a mime-writer named Marullus success-
fully recovered from an operation to treat a suppurant wound, during
which the sternum was opened and some bone excised after which the
heart was exposed to view.6* Throughout the composition it is stressed
that anatomical knowledge is essential for successful surgery.65
Another Galenic treatise that was translated into Syriac by Hunayn ex-
plicitly for the use of YflhannJ ibn MSsawayh, and then later turned into

Arabic by Hubaysh, was On the Composition of Medicaments Arranged
According to Type, and here also we find another reference to human dis-
section:
And so if in apes you frequently see the position and size of each tendon and
nerve, you will remember exactly, if you have the opportunity of dissecting a
human body, how to find quickly each one as you have seen it. But if you are
quite untrained, you will not get any benefit at all from such an opportunity;
just as the physicians in the German [Gallic] war who had permission to dissect
the bodies of the barbarians learned nothing more than what butchers know.66
The treatise containing this passage was, according to the Egyptian-
Syrian manuals for a muhtasib written by al-ShayzarT in the twelfth cen-
tury and by Ibn Ukhuwwah in the late thirteenth, a requirement for
62. Anat. admin. II, 2; Galen, (n. 55) On Anatomical Procedures, tram. Singer, pp. 32-34. The impor-
tance of repeated pracoce in animal dissection for the successful treatment of injuries and for surgery in
general is again argued by Galen in his On the Examination of Physicians, preserved today only in Arabic
translation (Ft mihnat cfdsl al-atibbi1); see Galen, Galen on Examinations by Which the Bat Physicians art
Recognized, Edition of the Arabic Version with English Translation and Commentary, cd. and trans. Albert Z.
Iskandar (Corpus Medicorum Graecorum Supplementum Onentale, IV) (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag,
1988), pp. 104-09 and commentary pp. 16568.
63. Anat. admin. II, 8; Galen, (n. 55) On Anatomical Procedures, trans. Singer, pp. 51-52; and Anat.
admin. XI, 4; Galen (n. 55) On Anatomical Procedures, trans. Duckworth, p. 86.
64. Anat. admin. VII, 13; Galen (n. 55) On Anatomical Procedures, trans. Singer, pp. 192-193.
65. E.g., Anat. admin. I 3, II 2, and III 9; Galen (n. 55) On Anatomical Procedures, trans. Singer, pp.
6-8, 32-34, and 81-82.
66. Kitlb QatUjdnis, or Kitab Fl lorklb al-odwiyah 'ala al-jumal wa-al-ajnds. See Bergstrlsser, (n. 55) Hun-
ain ibn IshSq, p. 30 no. 79; Ullmann, (n. 10) Medizin im Islam, pp. 4849 no. 50; and Sezgin, (n. 52)
Medizin-Pharmazie, pp. 118-20 no. 64. The Arabic text is exunt in two manuscripts, neither available
to the present author. The translation of this passage from De composilione medicamentorum per genera, III
2, is that of M. T. May and is based on the Greek text, Galen, (n. 58) Opera omnia ed. KOhn, XIII, 604;
see Galen, Galen On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, De usu partium. Translated from the Greek with
an Introduction and Commentary, trans. Margaret Tallmadge May, 2 vob. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1968), p. 40 note 182.
67
surgeons. Consequently, this advice of Galen's to be prepared in case
the opportunity arose to undertake human dissection must have been
quite well known in the medical communities, at least in Syria and Egypt.
Galen's major work on the structure and function of the human body,
On the Usefulness of the Parts, was translated into Syriac for Salmawayh
ibn Bunan, one of the physicians mentioned in the second story about
Ibn MSsawayh, and then turned into Arabic and widely read. In it,
Galen exhorts his readers to rely upon actual dissection for anatomical
knowledge and not upon written texts:
For anyone wishing that the works of the Creator be made apparent, it is in-

cumbent upon him not to trust in books devoted to anatomy but rather in what
he sees with his own eyes, and after that make up his own mind. Whoever so
wishes should either come to us for its demonstration or go for that to some of
our associates or withdraw by himself for the practice of dissection (tashrlh)
with determined practice and drill. That is because it is inevitable that the per-
son who proceeds to only read books will turn to one of the anatomists who
preceded us, and it follows that he will trust in and acquiesce to their opinion
in proportion to their great number.68
The references to dissection in this treatise are not as numerous nor as
detailed as in the treatise On Anatomical Procedures, and in most instances
it is clearly animal dissection that is intended.69
Frequent references to the importance of dissection for avoiding in-
correct anatomical speculations occur in Galen's On the Doctrines of
Hippocrates and Plato, written after the Anatomical Procedures and On the
Usefulness of the Parts and also translated into Arabic and quoted by later
Islamic writers.70 The dissection in these instances is not specified to be
67. Al-ShayzarT, (n. 45) Nihiyat, p. 101, and Ibn Ukhuwwah, (n. 47) Ma'ilim, p. 59 and Arabic p. 169.
68. Ft Mandfi' al-a'da", book II chapter 3; Manchester, John Rylands Arabic MS 809, folio 24b lines
4-9; translation by present author. See Bergstrfsser, (n. 55) Hunain ibn IshJq, pp. 22-23 no. 49, and
Sczgin, (n. 52) Medizin-Phamuzie, pp. 106-08 no. 40. For an edition and English translation of book
sixteen of the Arabic version, and a discussion of the Arabic manuscripts, see Emihe Savage-Smith,
Galen On Nerves, Veins and Arteries. A Critical Edition and Translationfromthe Arabic, with Notes, Glossary
and an Introductory Essay, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1969. For the English
translation of the Greek text, sec Galen, (n. 66) On the Usefulness of the Parts, trans. May, p. 119.
69 E.g., see Galen, (n. 66) On the Usefulness of the Parts, trans. May, p. 284 (VI, 4), 647 (XIV, 12), and
657-58 (XV, 1).
70. Ft Srs' Buqrlt wa-Falitan. See Bergstrisser, (n. 55) Hunain ibn hhiq, p. 21 no. 46, and Sezgin, (n.
52) Medizin-Pharmazie, pp. 105-06 no. 37. N o copy of the Arabic version is preserved. For an English
translation of the Greek text, see Galen, Galen On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, Edition,
Translation, and Commentary, ed. and trans. Phillip De Lacy (Corpus Mechcorum Graecorum, V, 4, 1,
2), 3 vols. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1978-84), esp. vol. i.pp. 99, m , 151, and vol. 2, pp. 387-89, 393,
441-43, and 482.
human and is surely intended to be animal dissection, though there is a
reference to Erasistratus directly observing the human brain and a repe-
tition of the viewing of the heart following the opening of the sternum
in a young boy.71 There is also in this treatise an interesting suggestion
for the use of staining to determine the functioning of organs:
Furthermore, if you make an animal of your choosing thirsty enough to sub-
mit to drinking stained water, and if you give it a drink that you have stained
with a blue or reddish color and dien immediately kill and dissect it, you will
find the lungs stained. Thus it is evident that some part of the drink passes into
them.72

It has been necessary to go into some detail regarding the references
to dissection in the Galenic treatises because they represent the ideas that
were current in the early medical literature available in Arabic, and this
literature was extensively read, cited, and quoted by later Muslim physi-
cians.73 No criticism of these Galenic statements has yet been found in
the extant Arabic medical literature that has been surveyed, and, in fact,
many of the ideas and themes are repeated by later Islamic writers, as will
become apparent.
In the medical encyclopaedias produced by the great Muslim system-
atizers of the tenth and eleventh centuries, knowledge of the parts of the
human body was frequently distinguished from other aspects of medi-
cine by its need for a different methodology. For example, Ibn Sma
(Avicenna), who was born in Central Asia in 370/980, stated in his Kitab
al-QdnunfT al-tibb {The Canon of Medicine):
As for the parts of the body and their functions, it is necessary that they be ap-
proached through observation (hiss) and dissection (tashrih), while those things
that must be conjectured and demonstrated by reason are diseases and their par-
71. Galen, (n. 70) On Docl. Hipp. Plat. ed. and trans. De Lacy, vol. 2, p. 443 (VII, 3) and vol. 1, pp.
7177 (book I, fragments, preserved in Arabic quotations by al-RlzT and by Ibn al-Mutrln, who died
in 587/1191).
72. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 539 (VIII, 9); translation is that of Phillip De Lacy.
73. For further discussion of dissection and vivisection in the Greco-Roman world, see HeTophilus,
Herophilus, The Art of Mediant in Early Alexandria, Edition, Translation, and Essays, ed. and trans. Heinrich
von Staden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 139-53; James Longrigg, "Anatomy in
Alexandria in the third century B.C.," Brit.}. Hist. Sri., 1988, 21, 455-88; G.E.R. Uoyd, "Alcmaeon and
the Early History of Dissection," in G.E.R. Uoyd, Methods and Problems in Creek Science (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 164-93; P- M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford;
Oxford University Press, 1972), I, 34854; F. Kudlein, "Antike Anatomic und meruchlicher
Leichnam," Hermes, 1969, 97, 78-94; Ludwig Edelstein, "The History of Anatomy in Antiquity,"
Ancient Medicine. Selected Papers of Ludwig Edelstein, eds. Owsei Temkin and C. Lilian Tcmkin (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), pp. 247301.
ticular causes and their symptoms and how disease can be abated and healdi
maintained.74
The early medical Arabic encyclopaedias also often contained appeals
for the study of anatomy as a necessary requisite for effective surgery and
phlebotomy. For example, in the tenth century the Andalusian physi-
cian Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn 'AbbSs al-ZahrSwi, known in the West as
Albucasis, gave, in the surgical chapter forming the final book of his en-
cyclopaedia, the following lament for the lack of good surgeons:
Now this is die reason why diere is no skillful practitioner in our day: the art
of medicine is long and it is necessary for its exponent, before he exercises it,

to be trained in the science of anatomy/dissection ('Urn al-tashrlh), as Galen has
described it, so diat he may be fully acquainted with the uses, forms and con-
stitutions of the parts; also how they are related and in what way they are in-
dependent; that he should understand fully also die bones, nerves, and muscles,
their numbers and origins; and also the bloodvessels, bodi arteries and veins,
with die locations of dieir sources. . . . For he who is not skilled in as much
anatomy as we have mentioned is bound to fall into error that is destructive to
life.75
Following this appeal, al-Zahr3wr provides several instances he wit-
nessed of physicians failing in their surgery.
Also working in Spain, Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198), known in Latin as
Averroes, was a scholar of the Qur'Snic sciences as well as a medical au-
thor.76 Between 1153 and 1169 he wrote in Arabic the treatise Kitab al-
KulliySt (The Book of General Principles), consisting of seven books, the
first concerned with anatomy of the human body. His advocacy of
human anatomy, though perhaps not the actual practice of dissection, is
illustrated by an often-quoted saying attributed to him:
74. Ibn SlnJ, KiUb al-QlnQnft al-tibb, (Ronue: In Typographia Medicea, 1593), p. 2; Ibn STnJ, Kitib
al-QjnOnfl al-tibb, 3 vols. (Cairo: Baliq, 1294/1877), I, 5 (KitSb I, farm 1, fasl 2).
75. Al-ZahrlwT, Albucasis On Surgery and Instruments. A Definitive Edition of the Arabic Text with English
Translation and Commentary, eds. and trans. M. S. Spink and G. L. Lewis (Berkeley/Los Angeles: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1973), pp. 23; translation is that by Spink and Lewis, emended by the pres-
ent author. For al-ZahrJwT (Albucasis), see Ullmann, (n. 10) Medizin im Islam, pp. 14951, and Sezgin,
(n. 52) Mcdizin-Pharmazic, pp. 32325. The importance of anatomical knowledge for successful surgery
and phlebotomy is a constant theme in Islamic medical literature, in contrast to Roger French's asser-
tion diat "die physician had no need of anatomical knowledge"; see, Roger K. French, "Radona] and
Empirical Methods in Early Western and Eastern Anatomy," in History of Traditional Medicine: Proceedings
of the First and Second International Symposia on the Comparative History of MedicineEast and West, ed.
Teizo Ogawa (Osaka: Taniguchi Foundation, Division of Medical History, 1986), pp. 14770, p. 148.
76. For die hfe and writings of Ibn Rushd, see Roger Amaldcz and A. Z. Iskander, "Ibn Rushd," in
Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Charles Coulston Gillispie, 16 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1970-80), XII, 1-9; and UUman, (n. 10) Medizin im Islam, pp. 16667.
94 Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January IQ95
Whoever has been occupied with the science of anatomy/dissection (tashrfh)
has increased his belief in God.77
Ibn Rushd was a bitter critic of the earlier jurist and theologian working
in the eastern provinces, al-Ghaz5lr (d. 505/1111). They were, however,
in agreement in their advocacy of anatomy. At this time the religious and
legal framework of Islam was gradually shifting to a more conservative
position. Al-Ghaz5lr's views denying the certainty of knowledge out-
side the realm of revelation and his questioning of previously held no-
tions of causation are considered by many to have affected and inhibited
scientific development in Islam.78

Yet, for medicine in general and anatomy in particular, al-Ghaz5lr's
writings were in fact a source of encouragement. In the discourse on
knowledge that opens his Ihya' 'ulum al-dln (The Revival of the Religious
Sciences), written during an eleven-year interval after he quit teaching
in Baghdad in A.D. 1085 and was Living for a while in Damascus, al-
GhazaiT classes medicine among those praiseworthy (mahmud) non-reli-
gious sciences, in contrast to astronomy and astrology that he considered
blameworthy (madhmutn).19 He clearly considered both anatomy and
medicine of the utmost importance, and his concern for the fact that
Muslims were not becoming physicians echoes al-Shafi'r's earlier con-
cern as reported by al-Dhahabl, though al-GhazSlT is more critical of the
motives of the Muslims:
How many a town has no physician except from among the protected non-
Muslims, whose testimony regarding matters relating to physicians cannot, ac-
cording to the laws of jurisprudence, be accepted.80 However, we do not see
one [Muslim] practising medicine, but rather they hurl contradictory state-
ments at each other in the field ofjurisprudence devoted to controversies and
disputations. Furthermore, the town is crowded with jurisprudents employed
in giving legal opinions (fatwas) and responses to evidence. . . . Could there be
any other reason for this except that medicine does not lead easily to the man-
77. Ibn Abl U s a y b i ' a h , (n. 48) 'VyUn al-anbd', II, 7 5 .

78. For the life and writings o f al-GhazIlI, see M o n t g o m e r y Watt, " G h a z l l l , " El2 (n. i ) , II, 1 0 3 8 - 4 1 ;
and AdTb NJyif DiyJb, "Al-Ghazlll," in Religion, Learnittg and Science in the 'Abbasid Period
(" 4). PP- 4^4-45-
79. See al-GhazIu", (n. 13) The Book of Knowledge, trans. Fans, pp. 37, 45-46, 54, 57, 77, 99, and
142-43 for the importance of medicine and its relationship to jurisprudence; for the status of astronomy
and astrology, sec pp. 7476, 97, and 99. In the Arabic text, see al-GhazJlT, (n. 13) Ihya" 'ulbm al-dtn, I,
16, 19-20, 24-25, 30, 41, and 59.
80. Ahl al-dhimmah, i.e., Christians and Jews and other protected peoples (see n. 6), who had a
different legal sums before a Muslim court and whose testimony did not hold equal weight to that of a
Muslim.
agement of religious endowments and wills, the holding of the property of or-
phans, and the appointment to judicial and governmental positions and,
through it, to advancement over fellowmen and power over enemies?81
Throughout the discourse on the nature of knowledge, there are nu-
merous analogies between the science of religion and the science of
medicine as well as anatomical knowledge.82
In the discourse on meditation (tafakkur), also from the same treatise,
al-Ghaz2lI devotes a number of pages to a fairly detailed anatomical ex-
position of the parts of the human body, advocating such study as a suit-
able subject for contemplation and drawing nearer to God.83 In this sec-

tion he does not actually employ the term tashrTh (anatomy/dissection),
though he clearly places great value on the knowledge of the structure
of the human body. Moreover, he does not include dissection among
the prohibited activities discussed in the discourse on the lawful and
unlawful that also forms part of this treatise, The Revival of the Religious
Sciences.**
In the highly autobiographical treatise al-Munqidh min al-daM (The
Delivererfrom Error), written toward the end of his life, al-Ghaza"lT made
a strong statement supporting the study of tashrih (anatomy/dissection),
using language reminiscent of the teleological justifications of Galen for
the study of the uses of the bodily parts:
The Naturalists (al-tabi 'yiln): They are a group of people who are constandy
studying the natural world and the wonders of animals and plants. They are fre-
quendy engaging in the science of anatomy/dissection ('Urn al-tashiih) of animal
81. Al-GhazItT, (n. 13) The Book of Knowledge, trans. Fans, p 51; translation is that of Fans emended
by the present author. For Arabic text, see al-GhazItl, (n. 13) Ihyd' 'ulflm al-dln, I, p. 22 lines 17-23.
This discourse is repeated nearly verbatim by Ibn Ukhuwwah (d. 729/1329) in his hisbah manual; see
Ibn Ukhuwwah, (n. 47) Ma'dlim, pp. 5657 and Arabic pp. 16566.
82. See, for example, al-Ghazlu",, (n. 13) The Book of Knowledge, trans. Faris, pp. 26-27, 7879,9899,
100-01, 137, and 139-42. For additional related statements by al-Ghazitl drawn from an abndgement
of the Ihyd' in Persian, Klmiyd-i sa'ddat, and translated into English as The Alchemy of Happiness, see
Seyyid Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmologual Doctrines (Cambridge: Harvard University
Pros, 1964), PP- 97-98.
83. In Kitdb al-tafakkur, forming kitdb 9 of the fourth rub' of Ihyd' 'ulam al-dln; sec al-GhazIlT, (n. 13)
Ihyd' 'ulam al-dln, IV, 44471, pp. 45762. For a short French summary, see G.-H. Bousquet, Chazdlr,
Ih'ya 'ouloum ed-dtn ou trivifuation da sciences de lafoi, analyse et index (Publications de l'lnsotut d'ttudes
Onentales de la Facultedes Lcttres d'AlgeT, xv) (Paris: Librairie Max Bcsson, 1955), pp. 426-31. For the
study of the microcosm of the human body leading to an understanding of the macrocosm, as advo-
cated by the Ikhwin al-Safl' (The Brethren of Purity), see Nasr, (n. 82) Islamic Cosmological Doctrines,
pp. 66-^74 and 96-104.
84. Al-GhazJlT, Ihyd' 'Ulam ad-Dfn, Livre XIV, Kitdb al-halil wa-l-hardm, Le Litre du Litite et de I'lUidte,
Introduction, Traduction, et Notes, trans. Regis Morelon (ttudes Musulmanes, xxv) (Paris: Librairic
PhilosophiqueJ. Vrin, 1981).
bodies, and through it they perceive the wonders of God's design and the mar-
vels of His wisdom. With this they are compelled to acknowledge a wise
Creator Who is aware of die ends and purposes of things. No one can study
anatomy/dissection and die wonders of die utilities of die parts widiout de-
ducing diis unavoidable inferencediat is, die perfection of the design of the
Creator with regard to the structure (binyah) of animals and especially die struc-
ture of humans.8S
As always, the meaning of the term tashrlh is ambivalent, allowing an in-
terpretation as both anatomy and dissection, although in the passage
above al-GhazJlT specified the science of tashrih as one carried out on

animals {a'dcl' al-hayawdn).
Among the general learned community, al-Ghaz5lT was associated
with an advocacy of tashrfh. Like Ibn Rushd, a famous saying concerned
with anatomy was attributed to al-Ghaz3lr:
Whoever does not know astronomy and anatomy (tashrlti) is deficient in die
knowledge of God.8*
Since al-GhazalT considered astronomy and astrology as blameworthy
sciences not to be pursued, it is unlikely that this is a genuine statement
of his. Nonetheless, the quotation was used by some later writers on
anatomy to open their treatises and probably served as a justification or
rebuttal for potential critics.87 The saying was repeated, though not at-
tributed to al-Ghazall, by the seventeenth-century Ottoman bureaucrat
and historian Hajjr Khallfah (d.1070/1658) in his Arabic bibliographical
dictionary in the section on books concerned with tashrTh.89 This ap-
parent support for anatomy/dissection by one of the most prominent
and influential of theologians would surely have helped make the intel-
lectual and legal climate of the late eleventh century and later favorable
for the study of anatomy, and possibly actual dissection, had someone
wished to undertake it.
Indeed, from the twelfth century we have a clear and forceful appeal
85. Al-Ghazi"u\ Al-Munqidh min al-dalal wa-al-masil iii dhr al-Hzzah wa-al-jalil, ed. Jamil
Sallta and KJrrul 'AyySd, ioth cd. (Beirut: D5r al-Andalus, 1981), pp. 96-97; translation is that of the
present author. See also, al-GhazIlI, The Confessions ofal-Ghazzali, trans. Claud Field (London: John
Murray, 1909), p. 25, and the translation given by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Stienu and Civilization in Islam
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 308.
86. E.g., Dublin, Chester Beatry Library, Persian MS 129, fol. ia, where the author is given as Imlm
GharilT.
87. E.g., Durham, North Carolina, Duke University Medical School, Trent MS, folio ib in the illu-
minated 'umudn to an undated copy of the Persian treatise TashrTh-i MansUrf written at die end of the
fourtcenrh century by Mansut ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Ilyas.
to physicians to undertake human dissection made by the Jewish physi-
cian Ibn Jumay' al-IsrJ'rlr (d. 594/1198), one of the court physicians to
Saladin in Egypt. In his treatise al-Risdlah al-Saldhlyahfi ihya' al-sina'ah
al-sihhlyah (The Treatise for Saladin on the Revivial of the Medical Art), Ibn
Jumay' is concerned with the deplorable state of medicine at the time
and proposed some measures to correct it. Among other things, he lists
the following as one of the requirements of a good physician:
He also requires the enumeration of the parts of the human body, part by
part, and die knowledge, gained dirough experience (hiss) and observation
(mashdhadah), of the characteristics of die nature of each widi regard to die

color, the normal state, and the like; [and knowledge] of its structure, that is,
its shape, its smoodiness or its roughness, whether diere is a cavity or duct in it
and what this cavity or duct contains; of the extent of its size and the number
of its component parts and the nature of each component, if it has component
parts; of its position, that is, its position in the body and whatever association
and connection there may be between it and other parts; and of its function and
useful purpose or purposes for which it is needed.
Pursuit of diese things by experience comes about only through the anatom-
ical dissection of human bodies (tashrih al-abdan al-bashariyah). But dissection of
diese bodies is not [done] widi ease and convenience at all times. And it [hu-
man dissection] does not suffice for die knowledge of these marten unless it is
preceded by extensive practice in die dissection of other similar animals whose
parts for the most part are like die parts of man, such as apes, [and] in the pres-
ence of instructors who are skilled in it, as the excellent Galen clearly and con-
cisely oudines.89
As explicit an appeal for human post-mortem dissection as this appears
to be, it is nonetheless difficult to tell how much it represents merely a
reworking of the statements and recommendations of Galen and how
much it reflects actual practices current in Egypt in the twelfth century.
What is evident, however, is that the practice was not proscribed nor re-
pugnant nor unacceptable to him. Furthermore, he did not think it
would be unacceptable to al-Malik al-N5sir I Sal5hal-DTn (Saladin), the
Muslim ruler of Egypt and later Syria as well from 1169 to 1193, to
88. HJjjT Khatl&h, Kashf al-zunun. Lexicon Bibliographkum el Encydopaedicum, ed. G. FlQgcl, 7 vok
(Leipzig/London: Published for the Oriental Translaoon Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1835-58),
II, 297-98 no. 3003. For WQjT KhalTfah, see Orhan Saik GOlcyay, "Karib CelebT," El2, (n. i), IV:7<5o-62.
89. Ibn Jumay', Treatise to Salah al-Dfn on the Revival of the Art of Medicine by Ibnfumay', ed. and trans.
Hartmut Flhndrich (Abhandlungen ftlr die Kunde del Morgenlandes, XLVI, 3) (Wiesbaden: Steiner,
1983), P- 14 section 25; the translation u that of the present author. For odier writings of Ibn Jumay',
see UUman, (n. 10) Medizin im Islam, pp. 16465.
whom the treatise is addressed, nor presumably to the other physicians
at the court of Saladin, many of whom were Muslims.90
By the end of the twelfth century, al-Ghazall's concern that Christians
and Jews were dominating medical practice to the exclusion of Muslims
seems to have been no longer appropriate. Muslims constituted an im-
portant part of the community of physicians in Egypt and Syria, while
in Spain in the twelfth century there were sufficient Muslim physicians
practicing so that the following antagonistic sentiment could be ex-
pressed by an overseer (muhtasib) of public services in Seville:
One must not sell a scientific book to the Jews, nor to the Christians, unless it

deals with their own law, for they translate books of science, and attribute them
to their own people and to their bishops, when they are [really] the works of
Muslims. It would be best if no Jewish or Christian doctor were left to treatthe
Muslims, for they have no concern for the welfare of a Muslim, but
only for the medical treatment of their co-religionists. How could one trust his
lifeblood with someone who has no concern for what is best for a Muslim?91
By the thirteenth century the leading physicians in the Islamic world
were Muslims rather than non-Muslims, though non-Muslims still
played a significant, albeit diminishing, role. Moreover, by the thir-
teenth century the philosopher-physician, as seen for example in Ibn
STn5, had given place to the jurist-physician. From this time onward,
physicians were frequently as expert in jurisprudence {fiqh) or Qur'lnic
sciences as they were in medicine. From the Muslim jurist-physicians of
the thirteenth century comes an especially important source for the his-
tory of anatomy in medieval Islam.
'Ala' al-DTn 'AlT ibn Abr al-Hazm al-QurashT, known as Ibn al-Nafrs
(d. 687/1288), was a respected authority on law, theology, and logic, and
an adherent of the ShJfi'T school of jurisprudence, as well as a prolific
writer of medical tracts.92 Among many other writings, he composed an
epitome of the Qdnun of Ibn STn5, called Kit&b al-Mujiz, which con-
90. For physicians at the court of Saladin, sec Samirajadon, "A companion of the wealth, prestige,
and medical works of the physicians of Sallh al-Dln in Egypt and Syria," Bull. Hist. Med., 1970, 44,
64-73; *r"J idem, "The physicians of Syria during the reign of Sallh al-DTn 570-589 A.H./i 174-1193
A.D.," J. Hist. Med. Allied Sd., 1970, 25, 323-40.
91. From me hisbah manual of Ibn 'Abdun written in Seville in the twelfth century, for the Arabic
text and English translation, see Charles Melville and Ahmad Ubaydli, Christians and Moon in Spain,
Volume III: Arabic Sources (yiii$oi) (Warminster Ans and Phillips, 1992) p. 113 and editors' comments
p. i n .
92. For the life and writings of Ibn al-Nafts, see Ullmann, (n. 10) Medvrin im Islam, pp. 172-76; A. Z.
Iskandar, "Ibn al-Nafls," in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (n. 76), IX, 602-06; and Ibn al-Naffs, (n. 41)
Theologus Autodidactus, pp. 1-28.
densed the entire Qdnun, except for the sections on anatomy and phys-
iology, and which became an authoritative work in its own right. Not
only did he epitomize the Qinun, but he also composed a commentary
on it, and in this commentary he criticized Ibn STn for dividing his dis-
cussion of anatomy between different books of the Qanun. Conse-
quently, Ibn al-NafTs prepared a separate commentary on the anatomi-
cal sections of the Qdnun. It is evident that he composed this anatomical
commentary rather early in his career, for there is preserved today a
manuscript copy of the commentary that the scribe finished copying on
25 Jum5da I 640/20 November 1242, forty-seven lunar (forty-six solar)
years before he died.93 Judging from the copies preserved today, the

commentary on the anatomy usually circulated separately from the
commentary on the rest of the Qdnun, though there is evidence that it
occasionally was included with the complete commentary, but when it
was so included, it seems that it was broken up and distributed among
the commentaries on the first and third books of the Qdniin.94
Because of Ibn al-Nafts's background as a jurist, his comments re-
garding dissection are of special importance. He opens his commentary
on the anatomy in the Qdniin in the following way:95
We have brought together what he [Ibn Slna] said in the first book of the
93. Los Angeles, UCLA, Biomedical Library, Special CoUecoonj, MS Ar. 80; A. Z. Iskandar, A
Descriptive List of Arabic Manuscripts on Medicine and Science at the University of California, Los Angela
(Leiden: Brill, 1984), pp. 18 and 73-74.
94. One copy u preserved today with the first half of the commentary (that on the bones, muscles,
nervei, and bloodvessels) placed in the middle of the commentary to the first book, but with the com-
mentary on the anatomy of die individual organs distributed throughout the commentary to the third
book; the manuscript is in London, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, MS WMS Or. 51,
with the anatomical commentary on folios 250-583 and throughout die third book, folios 24304753,
with, e.g., the anatomy of the brain on folio 244a, the eye on folio 253a and the heart on folio 357ab.
See A. Z. Iskandar, A Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical
Medical Library (London: The Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1067), pp. 180-81. This manuscript
is a lovely illuminated copy made in the seventeenth century and at one time in the library of Desire
Tholozon, physician to the Qajar ruler of Iran, Nlsir al-DTn Shah (reg. 18481896).
95. Ibn al-Naffs, Kitdb Sharh tashrfh al-Qdnttn, ed. Salman Qatfyah and Biwl GhaliyunjT (Paul
Ghalioungui) (Cairo: al-Hay'ah al-Misrfyah al-'Ammah li-l-Kitlb, 1088), p. 17; me translation is that
of die praent author. The edited edition of die text is based on six manuscripts diat unfortunately do
not include die earliest copy, MS Ar. 80 at UCLA (n. 93), nor MS Or. 51 at die Wellcome Institute (n.
94), nor MS arab. e. 177 in die Bodleian Library, Department of Oriental Books, Oxford, all diree of
which were used for comparison purposes by me present author. For other translations of this and some
of the odier passages given below, see Max Meyerhof, "Ibn an-Nafts und seine Theorie des
Lungenkreislaufs," Quellen und Studien zvr Gesdtidtte da Naturwissenschaften und der Median, 1935, 4,
37-88 and 22 pp. of Arabic text; Abdul-Karim Chehade, Ibn an-Nafls et la dtanwerte de la drmlation pul-
monaire (Damascus: Iradtut Francais de Damas, 1955), pp. 35-36; E. Edward Bittar, "A study of Ibn
Nans. Part III: A study of Ibn Nafis's commentary on die anatomy of die Canon of Avicenna," Bull.
Hist. Med., 1955, 29, 429-47; and Max Meyerhof, "Ibn An-Nafis (Xllldi cent.) and his dieory of the
lesser circulation," lsis, 1935, 23, 100-20.
ioo Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January
Qdnun, with what he said in the third book of diis treatise, for in that way the
discussion concerning anatomy will be together and [properly] organized. The
precepts'6 of Islamic law (sharf 'ah) have discouraged usfromdie practice of dis-
section (tashrth), along with whatever compassion is in our temperaments.
This statement is the closest we come to a medieval assertion that
Islamic law prohibited dissection. Yet there is here no clear sense of pro-
hibition or interdiction, but only a general sentiment that the conven-
tions, or perhaps rules, of the sharf'ah had discouraged or deterred them
(saddana)fromthe pursuit of dissection (mubasharat al-tashrih). Moreover,
Ibn al-Nafls does not cite an authority or legal opinion to support his

statement, nor does he refer again to any such inhibition in the rest of
the commentary.97 Ibn al-Nafls then continues his opening preface:
For this reason we dunk we will rely for knowledge of the forms of die inter-
96. Literally, "the setting or laying down [of the sharf'ah]," reading wi' as written in the earliest copy
(UCLA MS Ar. 80, p. 3) as well as Bodleian MS Arab. e. 177, fol. 2b and two of the manuscripts used
in the printed edition (Haddad manuscript and the British Library copy). Widi' is a classical word mean-
ing a person who records kadtths and also generally the putting or laying down of anything; see R. Dozy,
Supplement aux Dtctionnaires Arabes, 2 vols. (Leiden: Bnll, 1881 reprinted Beirut: Libnuric du Liban,
1968), II, 825 andj. G. Hava, Arabic-English Dictionary (Beirut: Catholic Press, 1951), p. 877. In the pre-
sent context of the setting down of the shart'ah, it would appear to mean the precepts, sentiments, or
rules of die sharr'ah. The editors of the printed text have chosen to follow die reading uwzi', a modern
word meaning "obstruction" or "restriction"; see Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, ed
J. Milton Cowan, 4di ed. (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1979), p. 1248. The word wizi' is given as a
marginal notation and correction to wOdi'm the Haddad manuscript (notaoon not noted by editors) and
in Bibliodicque Nanonale MS arabe 2939, folio lv, Pans, where it occurs widiout diacritical points, and
it is assumed diat it occurs in two other manuscripts used by the editors to which diis author does not
have access; for a photograph of the Pans manuscript, see Chehade, (n. 95) Ibn an-Nafis, plate I, and
for a photograph of the Haddad manusenpt, see Sami I. Haddad, "A forgotten chapter in die history of
die circulation of the blood," Annals of Surgery, 1936, 104, 1-8, reprinted in Sami I. Haddad, History of
Arab Medicine (Beirut: Oriental Hospital, 1975), pp. 89-99, ejp. Figure 8. This same reading, wazi', was
also adopted by Max Meyerhof in his printing of die text of MS Landberg 931; see Meyerhof, (n. 95)
QueUen und Studien, p. 1 of Arabic section. A third reading, dhirS', occurs in the Bodleian MS Marsh
234 folio ib, also used in the printed edition, but this is likely a mistake of die scribe, although it might
be interpreted as "the power [of the sharf'ah]"; a similar reading without diacritical points occurs in die
Wellcome MS Or. 51 fobo 25b. Various translations have been offered of this phrase, e.g., Meyerhof,
(n. 95) Quetlen und Studien, p. 7 ("von der prakuschen AusObung der Anatomic (Zergliederung) hat uns
das Verbot des religiosen Gcsetzes. . ."); Chehade, (n. 95) Ibn an-Nafis, p. 36 ("L'interdiction de la loi
religicuje . . ."); Bittar, (n. 95), p. 430 ("We have been prevented from carrying out dissection by our
religious sense as well as our sense of mercy . . ."); Meyerhof, (n. 95) "Ibn An-Nafis," p. 115 ("The in-
terdiction of the Religious Law and our own natural charity have prevented us from practical dissection
. . ."); Elgood, (n. 1) Medical History of Persia, p. 327 ("die veto of the religious law. . ."); and Haddad,
(n. 96) History of Arab Medicine, p. 94 ("What haj deterred us from engaging in dissection is the audior-
ity of die law and our inherent compassion . . .").
97. Nor does Ibn al-Nafls mention such a restriction in his treatise Mukhtasarft 'Urn usUl at hadoh
(Compendium on the Principles of the Sciences of Tradition) diat has been recendy edited; Ibn al-Nafi"s, Ibn
an-Nafb: Compendium Qber die Wissenschaft von den Gntndlagcn des Hadn (Muhtasarfi 'ilm usul al-hadtt), ed.
and trans. Hasan Amarat (Arabisnsche Texte und Studien, 1) (Hildcsheim/Zurich/New York: Georg
Olms, 1986).
nal parts on the discussion of our predecessors among diose who practiced this
art, especially the excellent Galen, since his books are the best of the books on
this topic which have reached us, in addition to which he examined many of
the muscles whose observation had not occurred before. For that reason, we
have placed most of our reliance for the knowledge of the forms and positions
of die parts and related matters on his statements, except for a few dungs that
we suppose were due to errors of the scribe or his information regarding it not
being verified through observation."
But as for the usefulness of each one of die parts, then we rely for knowl-
edge of that upon what precise examination and sound investigation dictate,
even if die opinion of our predecessors is not consistent widi ours or differs
from it. So dien we think that, before the discourse on anatomy, we will ex-

plain clearly, in die form of a preface, what is necessary for ascertaining knowl-
edge by this art.
The preface which then follows is divided into five topics: (i) on the
differentiation of animals with regard to bodily parts, (2) on the benefits
of the science of anatomy/dissection, (3) on enumerations of the uses of
the parts, (4) on the principles through which the science concerned
with the uses of the parts is derived by the method of anatomy/dissec-
tion, and the final section which reads as follows: 99
The fifth topic concerning what is anatomy/dissection (tashrfh) and its tools: As
for the dissection (tashriti) of die bones and articulations and similar things, it
can be done easily on a corpse, whatever the cause of its death. But it is easier
when, after some time has passed following its death, whatever skin is on it has
decayed until die bones remain, widi the articulation of the joints exposed. So
in this matter, there is litde need for much work in order to learn die form of
its bones and its articulations.
As for the dissection of the heart and arteries and diaphragm and lungs, etc.,
one [must] be informed about die manner of dieir movements and whether die
motion of the arteries is synchronous with the movement of the heart or is
different, and similarly, the movement of the lungs along with that of die
diaphragm. It is a given fact that it can be learned only dirough dissection
(tashrfti) of die living, but that is difficult because of die disturbance of the liv-
ing due to its feeling of pain.
As for die dissection of die small vessels which are in the skin and what is
nearby, it is difficult in the living for the reason we have just explained.
98. The wordi tahoqqaq al-mushdhadah fi-hl are missing in the printed text, though they occur
in every manuscript examined by mis author, including the earliest copy (UCLA MS Ar. 80).
99. Ibn al-Nafii, (n. 95) Shark tashrth, p. 30; UCLA MS Ar. 80, p. 12; Bodleian MS arab. e. 177, fo-
lio 7a; Wellcome MS Or. 51 folios 260273; Meyerhof, (n. 95) QueUen und Stuiien, pp. 72-73 and
Arabic pp. 23. Translation is that of the present author.
Similarly, in those who have died by a disease or the like, and especially one of
the diseases with which a scarcity of blood or humours is associated, such as in
diarrhea (ishzl), emaciation (diqq), and haemorrhaging (nazaf), then those ves-
sels disappear from view. Dissection of these vessels is easiest when it is on a
corpse which had died by asphyxiation,100 for asphyxiation moves the blood
and pneuma to the extremities, and so these vessels become engorged and
swollen. And it is necessary that it [the dissection] occur immediately follow-
ing the death, because if the time is long, there will be coagulation of die blood
in these vessels so that its volume decreases and then it is accompanied by a de-
crease in die swelling of those vessels. Galen said: "It is my custom to asphyx-
iate those I wish to dissect by using water so as not to bruise or damage any of
the parts of the neck [as happens] when I asphyxiate widi a rope or die like,"

With this quotation from Galen, 101 which refers of course to the prepa-
ration of animal specimens, Ibn al-Naffs ended the preface to his com-
mentary on the anatomy in the QHnun.
In the commentary itself, at five different places, Ibn al-Nafi"s pre-
sented a description of the movement of blood through the pulmonary
transit for which he is well-known among historians. 102 W h e n describ-
ing the so-called pulmonary circulation in the chapter on the anatomy
of the heart, he says of the heart:
He [Ibn SinJ] said it has three ventricles, but this is not a true statement.
Indeed, die heart has only two ventricles, one of diem filled widi blood, on die
right side, and the other filled widi pneuma, on die left. There is definitely no
passage between these two, for otherwise die blood would pass to die place of
die pneuma and would degrade its essence. And [furthermore] dissection (tashriH)
refutes what diey said, for the septum (hSjiz) between die two ventricles is
much thicker than elsewhere.103
Ibn al-Nafis presents no details as to what specimen he might have dis-
sected, and indeed some have suggested that the argument he presented
100. Khana, meaning suffocation or strangulation.

101. Such a procedure was recommended several times by Galen in his On Anatomical Procedures, for
example I, 3 ("I had it drowned, as I usually do, to avoid crushing the neck") and IV, 1 ("Ap should
be drowned, that no organs in the neck be damaged as they are by strangling"); Galen, (n. 55) On
Anatomical Procedures, trans. Singer, pp. 8 and 94.
102. Ibn al-Nafts repeated his description in the chapters on the anatomy of the pulmonary vein
(shirydn warfdl), the aorta, die heart, die lung, and the liver. For further studies see Meyerhof, (n. 95)
Quetten und Studien; Chehade, (n. 95) Ibn an-Naflr, Haddad, (n. 06); Iskandar, (n. 94) Arabic Manuscripts
in the WeJlcomt, pp. 40-42; and Owsei Temkin, "Was Servetus influenced by Ibn an-Nafl"s?," Bull. Hist.
Med., 1940, S, 731-34.
103. Ibn al-Nafl"s, (n. 95) Shajh tashrfh, p. 388; Wellcome MS Or. J I folio 357b at the start of the sec-
tion on diseases of the heart in the third book of the QSifln; Meyerhof, (n. 95) Quetttn und Studien, p.
81 and Arabic p. 12.
was based only on logical reasoning, despite his referring to proof by dis-
section in the above passage.104 Unequivocal evidence that Ibn al-Nafts
himself actively practiced human dissection has yet to be found.
Ibn al-Nafts also mentions animal dissection in a non-medical vision-
ary narrative in which a human, born by spontaneous generation on an
uninhabited island, discovers through his own efforts and reasoning the
truths of the universe. In this narrative, knowledge of the form and
function of the body is acquired by dissection of animals using any avail-
able crude tool:
He desired to know the functions of the organs in the interior of the abdomen

and the thorax. He saw that he could observe this in odiers; so he began to split
open die abdomens of animals of which he could get hold and which he found
dead. He did diis with his nails, with sharpedged stones, splinters of reeds, and
similar things which he found. In diis way he observed the stomach, and drat
the food is fermented in it . . . He also observed the heart widiin die thorax,
its right ventricle full of blood, its left ventricle full of pneuma, and diat diis
ventricle contracts so that die pneuma penetrates by die arteries into die organs,
then expands again, so that the pneuma returns to it, and at the same rime air
is attracted from die lung, which, in its turn, attracts die air from outside, so
that it penetrates into die hollow of the lung from the nose and mouth by die
larynx and the wind-pipe, and diis happens when die lung is extended . . . He
continually inquired into every single organ until he became acquainted widi
a great part of the science of anatomy.105
A similar discovery of the internal organs by means of animal dissec-
tion carried out by an isolated human is to be found in an earlier vi-
sionary narrative by the Andalusian writer Ibn Tufayl (d. 581/1155), and
Ibn al-Nafts was surely aware of this earlier composition.106 The vision-
ary essay by Ibn al-NafTs was written after 1258, when the Mongols had
overrun the central Islamic lands, and probably was composed during
the reign of Baybars (reg. 658-676/1260-1277) who is described in the
novella. Yet Ibn al-Nafts did not reflect in the brief description of the
heart his earlier discovery of the pulmonary transit recorded in his com-
mentary on Ibn SlhS's anatomy written before 1242.
104. See, e.g., Meyerhof, (n. 95) "Ibn An-Nafis," p. 118, for an interpretation that Ibn
al-Nafls's conclusions were based only on theoretical considerations and not on dissection of
either dead humans or living animals; for the opposite interpretation, see L. G. Wilson, "The problem
of the discovery of the pulmonary circulation,"/ Hist. Mei. Allied Sd., 1961, 17, 229-44.
105. Ibn al-Nafts, al-Risdlah al-KamQlyah ft al-sTrah al-nabawtyah, translated as die Tkeobgus
Autodidaam by Max Meyerhof and Joseph Schacht; translation given is that of Meyerhof and Schacht;
Ibn al-Nafts, (n. 41) Theobgus Autoiidactus, pp. 41-42.
106. Ibn al-Nafls, (n. 41) Thedogus Autodiiactus, pp. 2832.
104 Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January igg$
It is difficult to determine what in fact were Ibn al-Nafts's views re-
garding the practice of human dissection. On the one hand, he says that
Islamic law deterred people from dissection but does not go so far as to
say it was prohibited, while on the other he discusses ways of preparing
specimens for examination, admittedly primarily animals, and proceeds
to give a description of the heart that would imply an examination of a
human heart.
As can be seen from these selections from scholarly and medical writ-
ings, references to dissection, especially animal but also human, are to be
found throughout the literature, though particularly in the twelfth and

thirteenth centuries. To what extent these themes reflect actual practice
is problematic, since they are devoid of explicit descriptions of particu-
lar dissections.107 With regard to the matter of legal prohibitions, how-
ever, it seems clear from the evidence available that there were no ex-
plicit strictures banning it.
It is not the purpose of this study to explore the possibility that certain
anatomical structures described in a given treatise might be interpreted
as having required prior dissection in order to frame the description in
the given manner. Nor am I concerned here with anatomical discover-
ies resulting from chance observations, such as that by the versatile
scholar 'Abd al-Latlf al-Baghdadl (d. 629/1213), who taught medicine
in Damascus as well as writing a description of Egypt which included his
observations on a famine that occurred there in A.D. 1200. During the
famine, al-Baghdadi was able to examine a good number of skeletons,
from which he concluded that Galen had been incorrect regarding the
bones of both the lower jaw and the sacrum. The observations went un-
noticed in subsequent literature, probably because they were buried
in a book on descriptive geography rather than medicine. In any case,
al-BaghdadT made no statements about his attitude toward dissection,
which is the focus of this study, and the natural decomposition of the
107. Note that the statement by M.J.L. Young that the physician 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-Rahmln al-
QurtubT al-AndalusT (d. 458/1066) was famous for dissection, among other surgical skills, u based upon
a rendering of the word shaqq (literally, "cutting") as dissection rather than "making incisions." The lat-
ter translation is required in the context of the surrounding words kayy (cautery), qal' (excision or am-
putation), and ban (using a lancet or scalpel). Consequently, die biographical entry given by al-Qifff and
translated into English by M.J.L. Young cannot be used as evidence for the practice of dissection. See
M.J.L. Young, "Arabic Biographical Writing," in RtUgicn, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period, (n.
4), pp. 168-87, esp. p. 179; and Ibn al-Qifff, (n. 48) Ta'r1khal-hukamd',p. 243. These same surgical skills
are repeated by the historian Ibn AbT Usaybi'ah, who gives the name of the Andalusian physician as
'Umar ibn 'Abd al-Rahmln ibn Ahmad ibn 'AlT al-Kirmlnl; see Ibn AbT Usaybi'ah, (n. 48) Itytin al-
anba', II, 40 (last line).
skeletons he observed obviated his need to employ the knife. His abil-
ity to take advantage of the chance opportunity to study human skulls
and skeletal remains laid bare and clean through natural decomposition,
however, does illustrate Galen's repeated statement that a person must
be properly prepared in order to learn something from the experience.
Had al-BaghdldT not been a physician, trained in anatomy and possibly
animal dissection, he could not have learned from the accidental oppor-
tunity that arose in Egypt.108
It is the attitudes, both spoken and unspoken, in medieval Islam to-
ward the idea of dissection or the preparation of a skeleton for study that

are the particular focus of this study. The Christian physicians of the
ninth century, responsible for turning the Greek anatomical writings
into Arabic, displayed no compunction about the details of both human
and animal dissection and vivisection, and the treatises containing such
passages were well known and uncritically used by later Muslim phy-
sicians. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, scholars expressed re-
newed interest in anatomy and the possibility of dissection. The evi-
dence as to its actual practice, however, is conflicting and insufficient to
allow one to draw definite conclusions. If indeed any medieval Islamic
physician did undertake dissection, he must have felt the need to remain
quiet about the details. On the other hand, the silence of the medical
community regarding the details of dissection, combined with the lack
of concern regarding dissection in the legal literature (neither con-
demning nor approving nor even mentioning it), implies a lack of ac-
tivity. At this point I must, however, insert a caveat. The medieval Arabic
medical literature, not to mention the Persian and Turkish material, is
vast, and no claims can be made for having examined even the majority
of the texts, most of which still lie in manuscripts unedited and unpub-
lished. Vaster still must be the legal/theological literature and fatwa-
treatises containing legal responses to questions of law, of which even
less have been published or examined by scholars. Many lifetimes of
scholarship will be required to survey all the potentially pertinent mate-
rial. Nonetheless, I still hazard the following conclusions.
If physicians were deterred from undertaking dissection in medieval
Islam, and if there was no formal interdiction against the practice, then
108. For the life and writings of'Abd al-Laaf al-BaghdSdJ, and the text where his anatomical obser-
vations are recorded, see UDmann, (n. 10) Medizin im Islam, pp. 170-72. Al-Baghd3dl has incorrectly
been cited in one recent publication as an example that medieval physicians engaged in dissection of
dead bodies in order to teach anatomy; see al-FlrOqT, (n. 42) Cultural Atlas, p. 325.
io6 Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January
there must have been other factors that influenced the intellectual cli-
mate of the time. These factors were, I would suggest, complex and to
a large extent amorphous and never clearly delineated. Certainly a ma-
jor factor was the general human perplexity over the relationship be-
tween the bodily frame and the soul and, along with it, a desire not to
do anything which disturbs the soul of the deceased.
A belief in resurrection is a fundamental tenet of Islam, and most
Muslims hold that it is not a purely spiritual resurrection.109 Because it is
not a purely spiritual resurrection, there was much speculation among
philosophers and theologians regarding the nature of the body upon res-

urrection and its relationship to the physical body known previously on
earth. Implicit in all such discussions is a concern that mutilation, either
before or after death, will somehow affect the form of the body following
resurrection, and indeed today that is the reason often given if someone
inquires about the reluctance to undertake dissection in medieval times.
Many agreed that resurrection will occur despite complete decay and
destruction of the human body, the resurrection being by this interpre-
tation a second creation of the human form.110 Some suggested that
there is, in any case, no single unchanging human body for each soul,
for from the time of birth till maturity the body so changes that, as al-
GhazSll worded it, "we may safely say that after forty years no particle
remains of what was there when his mother was delivered of it."111 Al-
GhazSlr also said of the preparation for death itself: "Let man in every
hour look to his limbs and his extremities. Let his thoughts dwell upon
how the worms must needs devour them, and upon the fashion in
109. According to Ibn Rujhd, al-GhazIlr asserted in his Tahafut al-falasifah (The Incoherence of the
Philosophers) that no Muslim believed in a purely spiritual resurrection, but in other writings al-GhazaG
stated that there were some who held drat view; see Ibn Rushd, Avenoa' Tahafut al-tahifut (The
Incoherence of the Incoherence), Translated from the Arabic with Introduction and Notes, trans. Simon Van den
Bergh, 2 voU. (London: Luzac, 1909), I, 362 and II, 205 (note to page 362). Ibn Sina in some passages
clearly asserted that the resurrection was non-physical and that the body belongs only to the realm of
generation and corruption; see Michael E. Marmura, "Avicenna and the Kallm," Zeitschriflflr Ceschichte
der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, 1991-92, 7, 172206, esp. pp. 194-206. For a general discussion
of the concept of resurrection in Islam, see the article "Resurrection" in T. P. Hughes, A Dictionary of
Islam (London: W. H. Allen, 1885), pp. 536-44, where various Qurinic verses concerned with resur-
rection are given in translation; R. Arnaldei, "Ma'Id," EP (n. 1), V, 892-94; Louis Gardet, Dieu a la
destinte de I'homme (Etudes Musulmanes, IX) (Paris; Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1967), pp. 250-89;
and Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection
(Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1981).
110. Thomas O'Shaughnessy, Muhammad's Thoughts on Death' A Thematic Study of the Qur'anic Data
(Leiden: BriD, 1969), p. 46; Thomas O'Shaughnessy, Creation and the Teaching of the Qur'an (Rome:
Biblical Institute Press, 1985), pp. 70-89.
111. Al-GhazIrT in his Tahafut ol-fallsifoh as quoted by Ibn Rushd; Ibn Rushd, (n. 109) Avema'
Tahafut al-tahafut, trans. Van den Bergh, I, 353.
which his bones shall rot away. Let him wonder whether the worms are
to begin with the pupil of his right eye or of his left; for there is no part
of his body that shall not be food for the worm."112 Ibn Rushd argued
that "it must be assumed that what arises from the dead is simulacra of
these earthly bodies, not these bodies themselves, for that which has per-
ished does not return individually and a thing can only return as an im-
age of that which has perished, not as a being identical with what has
perished."113 Interpretations such as these might be seen to mitigate or
lessen the aversion to the mutilation of the dead body that is by defini-
tion a part of dissection.
On the other hand, Ibn al-NafTs reflected a different interpretation in

his visionary narrative, beginning his discussion of the subject by taking
up much the same argument as al-GhazalT: "the body of man as an in-
fant is different from his body as an old man, and likewise the parts of
the body, because both the body and its parts are continuously in disso-
lution and reconstruction, and unavoidably in constant change. But that
to which man refers when he says 'I' is not so, because it remains con-
stantly the same."114 Ibn al-Nafts then went on to argue that the coccyx
('ajb al-dhanab), the small triangular bone at the base of the spinal col-
umn, is not subject to decomposition and that it is the point at which
the soul enters and is attached to the body:
This matter is generated from sperm and similar things, and when the soul be-
comes attached to it and then begins to feed and to produce the organs, the
body is generated from it. This matter is called the coccyx. . . . This matter
which is the coccyx is imperishable. Therefore it remains after the death and
decomposition of the body, and the soul widi which it remains continues to be
perceiving and noticing, and at that time it experiences pleasure or pain; these
are the pleasures or pain in the tomb. Then when die time for resurrection
(ma'dd) comes, die soul stirs again and feeds the [nucleus of] matter by attract-
ing odier matter to it and transforming it into something similar to it; and
therefrom grows a body a second time. This body is die same as die first body
inasmuch as diis [nucleus of] matter in it is the same, and die soul is die same.
In this way the resurrection takes place.115
The belief that the coccyx did not decompose and that it is both the nu-
112. Al-ChazalT, The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife: Kiub dhikr at-mawt wa-mi ba'dahu, Book
XL of The Revival of the Religious Sciences Dtyd' 'ultlm al-dtn, Translated with an Introduction and Notes, tram.
T. J. Winter (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1989), p. 28.
113. Ibn Rushd, (n. 109) Averroa' Tahijul ai-tahifut, trans. Van den Bergh, I, 362.
114. Ibn al-Nafis, (n. 41) Theohgus Autodidactus, p. 57; translation u that of Meyeihof and Schacht.
115. Ibid., pp. 58-59; translation is that ofMeyerhof and Schacht.
cleus of the initial creation of the human body and of its resurrection as
well, is found in various collections of prophetic traditions. Malik ibn
Anas, for example, gives the saying of the Prophet as "The earth eats all
of the son of Adam except the coccyx. He was created from it, and on
it he is built."116 Clearly such a view would encourage the desire to pro-
tect and keep safe the coccyx, and with it the rest of the body.
Another common Islamic belief that was well established by the tenth
century is that the soul will be examined while in the grave and punish-
ment then extracted, with a subsequent judgment on the day of resurrec-
tion. It is said that the soul will be questioned in the grave by two angels
named Munkar and Naklr, both black with blue eyes. Unbelievers are

beaten with iron whips or given other punishments which their souls
feel, and there are elaborate arguments by some theologians to prove
that such punishments are extracted on those whose bodies were left im-
paled or whose bodies were eaten by wild beasts.117
The concept of resurrection is common to both Christianity and
Islam, yet in the Islamic world it may be that it presented a greater bar-
rier to undertaking human dissection than in Christianity. Perhaps the
Muslim belief that the resurrected body would in paradise be sensible to
physical pleasures, as it had on earth, contributed to a general belief that
the earthly physical body should therefore remain intact prior to natural
decomposition. In contrast, the traditional Christian teaching held that,
while there was a physical resurrection, the animal functions of sensa-
tion would not thereafter be operative.118 Moreover, both widely ac-
cepted Islamic notionsthat of the coccyx as the focus of resurrection
and the punishment of the soul in the gravesuggest, at least implicidy,
the protection of the corpse and the grave, while the pre-Islamic custom
of the veneration of the dead and the protection of certain graves con-
sidered sacred, though condemned by many Muslim clerics, was and still
is widely practiced.119 It is also apparent that, for whatever reason, there
was no interest on the part of Muslim clerics or jurisprudents in post-
116. Milik ibn Anas, (n. 25) Muwatta' trans. Bewley, p. 91 (Idtlb 16, jani'iz, sect. 49); translation is
that by Bewley. For other examples, see Wensinck, et al., (n. 8) Conamlcna et Indices, II, 189 (entries
under dhatwb) and IV, 135 (entries under 'ajb); and Gardet, (n. 109) Dieu tt la destinee, pp. 265-66.
117. See A. J. Wensinck and A. S. Tritton, "'Adhab al-kabr," EP (n. 1), I, 186-87; and al-Ghazllr,
(n. 112) The Remembrance of Detuh, pp. 133-47.
118. Gardet, (n. 109) Dieu et k destinee, p. 298.
119. Ignaz Goldziher, "On the Veneration of the Dead in Paganism and Islam," in Ignaz Goldziher,
Muslim Studies, ed. S. M. Stem (Chicago: Aldine, 1966), pp. 209-38; and M. Abdesselem, "Mawt," EP
(n. 1), VI, 910-11.
mortem examinations to determine cause of death, and consequently
there was no forensic impetus to engage in dissection.
On the other hand, just as great as a religious deterrent was perhaps
the general human dread of cadavers and the revulsion at the sight of hu-
man dissection, combined with a climate most unfavorable for such an
undertaking before the days of refrigeration. Baghdad, for example, is
one of the hottest inhabited areas of the world. During the first half of
the twentieth century the mean July temperature there was 94.4 F., with
Cairo having a cooler mean temperature of 82.8 F. Under such condi-
tions, even in winter time, the decomposition of a corpse would be very

rapid. Historical studies of climatic change suggest that in the early ninth
century there was a period of increased dryness and heat that lasted
throughout the century in Syria. During the high middle ages, A.D.
10001300, the temperatures were again warmer than this century, but
with greater rainfall. Thus, at precisely the two periods in which there
was expressed interest in dissection, there was also an extended period
of unusual warmth. On the other hand, some human dissection was car-
ried out in Alexandria in the early third century B.C., although it should
be noted that Alexandria is considerably cooler than Cairo and even in
summer is quite comfortable.120 Furthermore, under Islamic rule, Alex-
andria was not a center of medical activity.
Cutting into a corpse, especially a human one, is a messy and pains-
taking endeavor which, under the best of conditions, requires a strong
motivation to carry out. Working in a very warm climate, with no
means available for refrigeration of the cadaver and no methods for
preparing or preserving the specimen or injecting the bloodvessels,
would not be working under the best of conditions. As the anatomist
and pathologist F. Gonzalez-Crussi has recently expressed it in his Notes
of an Anatomist, "before second-order ideas and hypotheses are con-
structed, he [the anatomist or pathologist] must dip his hand in blood
and viscous secretions and experience revolting sensations, nauseating
odors, revolting sights."121 How much more true this would have been
when working in thirteenth-century Cairo, Damascus, or Baghdad.
Finally, the anatomical writings inherited by the Arabic-speaking
world were quite voluminous and remarkably detailed, even if they
were based primarily on animal anatomy. Their sheer number, com-
120. H. H. Lamb, Climate, History and the Modem World (London/New York: Methuen, 1982), pp.
159-60 and 173-76.
121. F. Gonzalez-Crussi, Notes of an Anatomist (London: Picador, 1986), p. 66.
no Journal of the History of Medicine : Vol. 50, January 1995
bined with their apparent thoroughness, argued for them being accepted
as authoritative, even though in those very writings Galen had urged
readers not to rely upon written anatomical treatises but only upon per-
sonal dissection and observation. For the practical purposes of the thera-
peutics of the day, the anatomical knowledge served fairly well, and if,
as G.E.R. Lloyd has argued in another context,122 there was no particu-
lar anatomical problem to test, then there was little impetus to under-
take the difficult and distasteful dissection and little if anything to be
gained from the experience.
ill. LJoyd, (n. 73), p. 166.

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Anatomie Im Islam

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Attitudes Toward Dissection

HE question of whether human anatomical dissection

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2. M u h a m m a d ibn Mukarram ibn ManzOr, Lain al-'arab, 20 v o b . (Cairo: B u l a q , 1300-1308/

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77. Ibn Abl U s a y b i ' a h , (n. 48) 'VyUn al-anbd', II, 7 5 .

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100. Khana, meaning suffocation or strangulation.

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ill. LJoyd, (n. 73), p. 166.

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