DFG Project: Critical Edition and Annotated English Translation of Ibn al-Mubārak’s Book on Poisons
Chair:
Project Description:
In the year 488 AH/1095 CE, the Yemeni physician al-Husain ibn abî Ṯa`lab ibn al-Mubârak authored a comprehensive work on poisons titled *Kitâb al-Munqid min al-halaka fī dafʿ madârr as-samâ `im al-muhlika* (“The Savior from Death Concerning the Aversion of Harm from Deadly Poisons”). Despite significant preliminary work by Manfred Ullmann, which he published beginning in the 1970s, the text has remained largely unknown to the scholarly public and even to specialists in the history of Arabic medicine.
The main goal of the project is to produce the first critical edition of the Arabic original of Books I and II of the three-part work, which has been preserved in a number of manuscripts. The first book contains a general introduction to toxicology, and the second part deals with poisons from the animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms. The Arabic text is accompanied by an annotated English translation and a detailed commentary that will address various topics. These include the identification of the poisons discussed, parallel texts, and, in particular, the question of the sources of K. al-Munqiḏ. The author cited dozens of Greek and Arabic authors and books, many of which are lost today, which lends particular significance to Ibn al-Mubârak’s citations. Above all, late antique and early Islamic pseudepigraphs on toxicology—with their scientific and magical content—can be reconstructed almost exclusively on the basis of quotations. The K. al-Munqid is one of the most important sources of such fragments, which have never before been analyzed in context.