Ibn al-Nafis

Ala-al-din abu Al-Hassan Ali ibn Abi-Hazm al-Qarshi al-Dimashqi
Title	Ibn al-Nafis
Personal
Era	Islamic Golden Age
Jurisprudence	Shafi`i
Main interest(s)	Medicine, Anatomy, Biology, Physiology, Surgery, Astronomy, Cosmology, Futurology, Geography, Geology, Grammar, Linguistics, History, Literature, Logic, Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Science Fiction, Scientific Skepticism, Sociology, Theosophy, Islamic Studies, Islamic Jurisudence, Sharia Law, Islamic Theology
Notable work(s)	Commentary on Anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon, The Comprehensive Book on Medicine, Theologus Autodidactus, The Summary of Law, Kitab al-Mukhtar fi al-Aghdhiya, Road to Eloquence, A Short Account of the Methodology of Hadith
Senior posting
Influenced by Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, Muhammad, al-Shafi`i, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Avicenna, Abubacer
Influenced Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī, Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Andrea Alpago, Michael Servetus, Realdo Colombo, William Harvey

Ala-al-din abu Al-Hassan Ali ibn Abi-Hazm al-Qarshi al-Dimashqi (Arabic: علاء الدين أبو الحسن عليّ بن أبي حزم القرشي الدمشقي ) (born 1213 - died 1288), also known as Ibn al-Nafis (Arabic: ابن النفيس ), was an Arab Muslim polymath: a physician, anatomist, biologist, physiologist, surgeon, astronomer, cosmologist, futurist, geographer, geologist, grammarian, linguist, historian, litterateur, logician, philosopher, psychologist, scientist, science fiction writer, skeptic, sociologist, theosophist, Islamic scholar, Shafi`i jurist and lawyer, and Sunni theologian.

Ibn al-Nafis is most famous for being the first physician to describe pulmonary circulation and coronary circulation, which form the basis of the circulatory system, for which he is considered the father of the theory of circulation. He was also an early proponent of experimental medicine, postmortem autopsy, and human dissection, first described the concept of metabolism, and developed new systems of physiology and psychology to replace the Avicennian and Galenic systems, while discrediting many of their erroneous theories on the four humours, pulsation, bones, muscles, intestines, sensory organs, bilious canals, esophagus, stomach, and the anatomy of almost every other part of the human body. Ibn al-Nafis also drew diagrams to illustrate different body parts in his new physiological system. Besides his medical contributions, his works on fictional Arabic literature included Theologus Autodidactus, which is considered the earliest example of a desert island story, a coming of age story, and a science fiction story, through which he expressed many of his religious and philosophical views on a wide variety of scientific subjects.

Biography

The opening page of one of Ibn al-Nafis's medical works. This is probably a copy made in India during the 17th or 18th century.

He was born in 1213 in Damascus. He attended the Medical College Hospital (Bimaristan al-Noori) in Damascus. Besidea medicine, Ibn al-Nafis was also learned in Arabic literature, Fiqh (jurisprudence), Kalam (theology) and early Islamic philosophy. He became an expert on the Shafi`i school of jurisprudence and an expert physician.

In 1236, Al-Nafis moved to Egypt. He worked at the Al-Nassri Hospital, and subsequently at the Al-Mansouri Hospital, where he became chief of physicians and the Sultan’s personal physician.

Ibn al-Nafis grew up in a time of political turmoil in Syria and Egypt, during the Crusades and Mongol invasions. After the sack of Baghdad in 1258, Syria was soon temporarily occupied by the Mongol Empire in 1259, who were then subsequently repelled by the Egyptian Bahri dynasty at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. Like other traditionalist Muslims in his time, Ibn al-Nafis believed that these invasions may have been a divine punishment from God against Muslims deviating from the Sunnah.

When he died in 1288, he donated his house, library and clinic to the Mansuriya Hospital.

Religious background

Ibn al-Nafis was an orthodox Sunni Muslim and an Islamic scholar of the Shafi`i school of Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and Sharia (Islamic law). He wrote a number of works on Kalam (Islamic theology) and early Islamic philosophy, and was particularly interested in reconciling reason with revelation and blurring the line between the two. Unlike some of his contemporaries and predecessors, he made no distinction between philosophy and theology, hence he may arguably be described as a theosophist. Ibn al-Nafis adhered to the teachings of the Qur'an and accepted the authority of the hadiths, but required each hadith to be rationally acceptable.

Ibn al-Nafis, who grew up in a time of political turmoil during the Crusades and Mongol invasions, commented on these conflicts and, like other traditionalist Muslims in his time, believed that these invasions may have been a divine punishment from God against Muslims deviating from the Sunnah. As a result, the falsafa, some of whom held ideas incompatible with the Sunnah, became targets of criticism from a number of traditionalist Muslims. Ibn al-Nafis, who was a traditionalist himself, made an attempt at reconciling reason with revelation in some of his works to show that there is harmony between religion and philosophy. Being a traditionalist, Ibn al-Nafis also disliked the misuse of wine as self-medication, while citing both medical and religious reasons against it, arguing that "I will not meet God, the Most High, with any wine in me." His image as a God-fearing and Sunnah-abiding religious scholar, an intelligent rational philosopher, and an accomplished medical physician, all had a positive impression on later Islamic scholars attempting to reconcile faith with reason.

Legacy

During and after his lifetime, Ibn al-Nafis' 80-volume medical encyclopedia, The Comprehensive Book on Medicine, had eventually replaced The Canon of Medicine of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) as a medical authority in the medieval Islamic world. Arabic biographers and reviewers from the 13th century onwards considered Ibn al-Nafis the greatest physician in history, some referring to him as "the second Ibn Sina" and others considering him even greater than all his predecessors. The biographers Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 1370) and Ibn Qadi Shuhba wrote:

"As for medicine, there has never been anyone on this earth like [Ibn al-Nafīs]. Some say that after Ibn Sīnā there has never been one like [Ibn al-Nafīs], while some say that he was better than Ibn Sīnā in practical treatment."

Shortly after his Commentary on Anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon was re-discovered in modern times, George Sarton, the "father of the history of science", wrote the following on the significance of Ibn al-Nafis' discovery of pulmonary circulation to the history of medicine:

"If the authenticity of Ibn al-Nafis' theory is confirmed his importance will increase enormously for he must be considered one of the main forerunners of William Harvey and the greatest physiologist of the Middle Ages."

Commentary on Anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon

In 1924, an Egyptian physician, Dr. Muhyo Al-Deen Altawi, discovered a manuscript from 1242, titled Sharh Tashrih al-Qanun Ibn Sina (Commentary on Anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon), in the Prussian State Library in Berlin while studying the history of Arab Medicine at the medical faculty of Albert Ludwig's University in Germany. This script is considered one of the best scientific books in which Ibn al-Nafis covers in detail the topics of anatomy, pathology and physiology. This work contained the earliest descriptions of pulmonary circulation and coronary circulation, which form the basis of the circulatory system.

Pulmonary circulation

The theory that was accepted, prior to Ibn al-Nafis, was placed by Galen in the 2nd century and improved by Avicenna in the 11th century. Galen had theorized that the blood reaching the right side of the heart went through invisible pores in the cardiac septum, to the left side of the heart, where it mixed with air to create spirit, and was then distributed to the body. According to Galen's views, the venous system was quite separate from the arterial system, except when they came in contact through the unseen pores.

Based on his anatomical knowledge, Ibn al-Nafis stated that:

"...the blood from the right chamber of the heart must arrive at the left chamber but there is no direct pathway between them. The thick septum of the heart is not perforated and does not have visible pores as some people thought or invisible pores as Galen thought. The blood from the right chamber must flow through the vena arteriosa (pulmonary artery) to the lungs, spread through its substances, be mingled there with air, pass through the arteria venosa (pulmonary vein) to reach the left chamber of the heart and there form the vital spirit..."

Elsewhere in his book, he said: ...

"The heart has only two ventricles ...and between these two there is absolutely no opening. Also dissection gives this lie to what they said, as the septum between these two cavities is much thicker than elsewhere. The benefit of this blood (that is in the right cavity) is to go up to the lungs, mix with what is in the lungs of air, then pass through the arteria venosa to the left cavity of the two cavities of the heart..."

In describing the anatomy of the lungs, Ibn al-Nafis stated:

"The lungs are composed of parts, one of which is the bronchi; the second, the branches of the arteria venosa; and the third, the branches of the vena arteriosa, all of them connected by loose porous flesh."

He then added:

"... the need of the lungs for the vena arteriosa is to transport to it the blood that has been thinned and warmed in the heart, so that what seeps through the pores of the branches of this vessel into the alveoli of the lungs may mix with what there is of air therein and combine with it, the resultant composite becoming fit to be spirit, when this mixing takes place in the left cavity of the heart. The mixture is carried to the left cavity by the arteria venosa."

Ibn al-Nafis also postulated that nutrients for heart are extracted from the coronary arteries:

"... again his (Avicenna's) statement that the blood that is in the right side is to nourish the heart is not true at all, for the nourishment to the heart is from the blood that goes through the vessels that permeate the body of the heart..."

Dr. Paul Ghalioungui summarizes the fundamental changes Ibn al-Nafis made to the incorrect Galenic-Avicennian theory that led to his discovery of pulmonary circulation (lesser circulatory system) as follows:

1. "Denying the existence of any pores through the interventricular septum."
2. "The flow of blood from the right ventricle to the lungs where its lighter parts filter into the pulmonary vein to mix with air."
3. "The notion that blood, or spirit from the mixture of blood and air, passes from the lung to the left ventricle, and not in the opposite direction."
4. "The assertion that there are only two ventricles, not three as stated by Avicenna."
5. "The statement that the ventricle takes its nourishment from blood flowing in the vessels that run in its substance (i.e. the coronary vessels) and not, as Avicenna maintained, from blood deposited in the right ventricle."
6. "A premonition of the capillary circulation in his assertion that the pulmonary vein receives what comes out of the pulmonary artery, this being the reason for the existence of perceptible passages between the two."

Coronary circulation

Ibn al-Nafis' next most important discovery is coronary circulation, the second phase of the circulatory system. He was the first to realize that the nutrition of the heart is extracted from the small blood vessels passing through its wall. He wrote:

"Again his [Avicenna's] statement that the blood that is in the right side is to nourish the heart is not true at all, for the nourishment to the heart is from the blood that goes through the vessels that permeate the body of the heart..."

Other discoveries

While the most important discoveries in the Sharh Tashrih al-Qanun Ibn Sina (Commentary on Anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon) were the pulmonary and coronary circulations, this work also contains many other discoveries and discredits many erroneous theories advocated in The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Galen. Besides the examples given in this article, the Commentary on Anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon contains numerous other discoveries, criticisms and corrections on the anatomy and physiology of almost every part of the human body, including the bones, muscles, intestines, sensory organs, bilious canals, esophagus, stomach, etc.

Brain

Ibn al-Nafis quotes another error made by Galen, who believed that "blood reaches the brain itself at the section called forebrain through the duramater which divides the vault longitudinally into two equal halves at the sagittal suture." Ibn al-Nafis criticized this theory and corrected it as follows:

"The blood permeates first to the back ventricle (hindbrain) then to the other two ventricles. Dissection confirms this and disproves what they say. The permeation of arteries into the cranium is well known not to be from the front ventricle."

Canals

Another example concerns an incorrect theory on the anatomy of the bilious canals that was supported by Galen and Avicenna, and later repeated by Leonardo da Vinci and even Vesalius during the early modern period. Ibn al-Nafis was the only physician in pre-modern times to prove this theory wrong:

"He [Galen] claims that another canal goes from the gall bladder to the intestinal cavaties. This is completely wrong. We have seen the gall bladder several times and failed to see anything going from it either to the stomach or to the intestines."

Heart

Another correction he made concerned the incorrect Galenic and Avicennian theories of bones being present beneath the human heart. Ibn al-Nafis proved them both wrong through his own observations and wrote the following criticism on their theories:

"This is not true. There are absolutely no bones beneath the heart as it is positioned right in the middle of the chest cavity where there are no bones at all. Bones are only found at the chest periphery not where the heart is positioned."

Muscles

Ibn al-Nafis made the following correction concerning human muscles, where he also briefly refers to his then forthcoming encyclopedia The Comprehensive Book on Medicine:

"The most important muscles of a human body total 529, details of which you will read in a book we are writing on medicine with full investigations into their shapes, functions, tendons, and origins. The forthcoming book will also contain details about proper anatomy since what is said about it here, is short and brief."

Nerves

Ibn al-Nafis corrects another theory on the nerves stated by Avicenna, who believed that the glossopharyngeal nerve, vagus nerve and accessory nerve arise from the nerve ganglion and that they are attached to the sigmoid and facial nerves through membranous fascia so that these five nerves look like one nerve emerging as three branches from the back foramen lacerum. After Ibn al-Nafis dissected that part of the brain, he wrote the following criticism on this theory:

"About what he [Ibn Sina] said concerning the sixth nerve being attached to the fifth through membranous facia, I have not so far found a good reason for that attachment, and I have not even verified it. This sixth pair [a confluence of the glossopharyngeal, vagus and accessory nerves] both arises and emerges from behind the fifth, so there is no way it could be attached to it."

Another example was Galen's incorrect theory on the optic nerve, in which he stated that the optic nerve "which comes from the right side of the brain goes to the right eye, and the nerve which comes from the left side goes to the left eye." Ibn al-Nafis also proved this theory wrong and stated:

"In fact it is not like that, [but] each nerve goes to the opposite side."

The Comprehensive Book on Medicine

The most voluminous of his books is Al-Shamil fi al-Tibb (The Comprehensive Book on Medicine), which was planned to be a medical encyclopedia comprising 300 volumes, but he was only able to complete 80 volumes as a result of his death in 1288. The book is one of the largest known medical encyclopedias in history, and even in its incomplete state, was much larger than the more famous The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna (Ibn Sina). However, only a small portion of The Comprehensive Book on Medicine has survived.

Surgery

A surviving manuscript (MS Z 276) containing volumes 33, 42 and 43 of The Comprehensive Book on Medicine was found in Damascus and is available at the Lane Medical Library of Stanford University. One of the three surviving volumes of The Comprehensive Book on Medicine is dedicated to surgery, and is divided into three talim. The first talim is twenty chapters in length and deals with the "general and absolute principles of surgery", the second talim deals with surgical instruments, and the third examines every type of surgical operation known to him. Only the first five chapters of the first talim has been translated into English and their contents are listed as follows:

1. "On the different stages of surgical operations, and the role of the patient in each stage"
2. "On the role of the physician during the time of presentation, the time of operative treatment, and the time of preservation"
3. "On a detailed discussion of the role of the physician during the time of presentation"
4. "On relating the things to which the physician should pay attention during the time of operative treatment"
5. "On the patient's posture during surgical treatment"

Ibn al-Nafis states that in order for a surgical operation to be successful, full attention needs to be given to three stages of the operation. The first stage is the pre-operation period which he calls the "time of presentation" when the surgeon carries out a diagnosis on the affected area of the patient's body. The second stage is the acutal operation which he calls the "time of operative treatment" when the surgeon repairs the affected organs of the patient. The third stage is the post-operation period which he calls the "time of preservation" when the patient needs to take care of himself and be taken care of by nurses until he recovers "by the will of God". For each stage, he gives detailed descriptions on the roles of the surgeon, patient and nurse, and the manipulation and maintainance of the surgical instruments being used.

Other medical writings

His book on ophthalmology is largely an original contribution. Another famous book, embodying his original contributions, was on the effects of diet on health, entitled Kitab al-Mukhtar fi al-Aghdhiya.

Commentaries

The most famous known work of Ibn al-Nafis is his 20-volume commentary on Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine, in which Ibn al-Nafis "elucidated the scientific problems, pointed out the logical conclusions, and explained the medical difficulties" in the text according to the biographers Umarī and al-Safadī. The most famous part of his commentary is the Sharh Tashrih al-Qanun Ibn Sina (Commentary on Anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon), in which Ibn al-Nafis made his discovery of pulmonary circulation and coronary circulation.

Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a commentary on the last part of Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine concerning remedies, which was later translated into Latin by Andrea Alpago (d. 1522) and published in Europe in 1547. It is believed that Ibn al-Nafis' Commentary on Anatomy in Ibn Sina's Canon, which first described pulmonary circulation, may have also also been translated into Latin and available in Europe around that time, and that it may have had an influence on the descriptions of pulmonary circulation given by Michael Servetus (d. 1553) and Realdo Colombo (d. 1559), and possibly William Harvey (1578-1657).

He also wrote a number of commentaries on the topic of medicine. His commentaries include one on Hippocrates' book, and several volumes on Ibn Sina's Qanun Fil Tibb (The Canon of Medicine). Additionally, he wrote a commentary on Hunayn ibn Ishaq's book.

Theologus Autodidactus

Al-Risalah al-Kamiliyyah fil Siera al-Nabawiyyah (The Treatise of Kamil on the Prophet's Biography), also known as Risālat Fād il ibn Nātiq (The Book of Fādil ibn Nātiq), was a work of Arabic fiction written by Ibn al-Nafis and later translated into English as Theologus Autodidactus.

Plot

This was the earliest example of a desert island story, a coming of age story, and a science fiction story. The protagonist of the story is Kamil, a spontaneously generated and autodidactic adolescent living in seclusion on a deserted island, who eventually comes in contact with the outside world after the arrival of visitors who get stranded on the island and later take him back to the civilized world with them. The plot gradually develops and eventually reaches its climax with a catastrophic doomsday apocalypse.

Themes

Ibn al-Nafis uses this story to express many of his own religious and philosophical views on a wide variety of subjects, including biology, cosmology, empiricism, epistemology, experimentation, futurology, geology, natural philosophy, the philosophy of history and sociology, the philosophy of religion, physiology, and teleology. Through the story of Kamil, Ibn al-Nafis attempted to establish that the human mind is capable of deducing the natural, philosophical and religious truths of the universe through reasoning and logical thinking. The "truths" presented in the story include the necessity of God's existence, the life and teachings of the prophets of Islam, and an analysis of the past, present, and future, including the origins of the Homo Sapien species and a general prediction of the future on the basis of historicism and historical determinism. The final two chapters of the story resemble a science fiction plot, where the end of the world, doomsday, resurrection and afterlife are predicted and scientifically explained using the knowledge of biology, astronomy, cosmology and geology known in his time. The main purpose behind Theologus Autodidactus was to explain Islamic religious teachings in terms of science and philosophy through the use of a fictional narrative, hence this was an attempt at reconciling reason with revelation and blurring the line between the two.

Ibn al-Nafis described the book as a defense of "the system of Islam and the Muslims' doctrines on the missions of Prophets, the religious laws, the resurrection of the body, and the transitoriness of the world." It presents rational arguments for bodily resurrection and the immortality of the human soul, using both demonstrative reasoning and material from the hadith corpus as forms of evidence. Later Islamic scholars viewed this work as a response to Avicenna's metaphysical view of spiritual resurrection (as opposed to bodily resurrection), which was earlier criticized by al-Ghazali.

Metabolism

The Theologus Autodidactus also contains some passages that are of significance to physiology and biology, such as the following statement:

"Both the body and its parts are in a continuous state of dissolution and nourishment, so they are inevitably undergoing permanent change."

This is seen as the first example of the concept of metabolism, which is comprised of catabolism, where living matter is broken down into simple substances, and anabolism, where food builds up into living matter.

Other subjects

Linguistics

Ibn al-Nafis wrote two books on Arabic linguistics. One was his original work, Tareeq al-Fasaha (Road to Eloquence), while the other was a commentary on the linguist Said bin al-Hassan al-Rab'i al-Baghdadi's Al-Fusous (The Segments).

Logic

Ibn al-Nafis wrote two books on logic in Islamic philosophy. One of these works deals with Avicennian logic as a commentary of Avicenna's Al-Isharat (The Signs) and Al-Hidayah (The Guidance). His other work on logic, Al-Wurayqat (The Little Papers), deals with Aristotelian logic as a commentary on Aristotle's Organon and Rhetoric.

Sharia law

Ibn al-Nafis wrote several books dealing with Sharia law, such as Al-Mukhtasar fi Ilm Usoulil Hadith (A Short Account of the Methodology of Hadith), and the Theologus Autodidactus. He also wrote a commentary on Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi's Al-Tanbeeh (Exhortation).

One of his most famous books on law is Mujaz al-Qanun (The Summary of Law). He also wrote a number of other commentaries on the topic of law.

See also

• Circulatory system
• Islamic medicine
• List of Arab scientists and scholars
• Medical Encyclopedia of Islam and Iran

References

• Bayon, H. P. (1941), Significance of the demonstration of the Harveyan circulation by experimental tests, Isis 33, p. 443-453.
• Fancy, Nahyan A. G. (2006), "Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288)", Electronic Theses and Dissertations, University of Notre Dame.[1]