Completion of the critical edition and English translation of Ibn al-Jazzār’s Zād al-musāfir (books III until V) accompanied by studies on the sources of the text and an online publication of the complete work

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Gerrit Bos
• Subject Area: Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies ; Religious Studies and Jewish Studies ; History of Science
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 447247604

Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn abī Khālid Ibn al-Jazzār from Kairouan wrote at the end of the 4th/10th century a therapeutic compendium entitled Zād al-musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir (“Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary”). This medical handbook enjoyed great popularity among the European physicians of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. The Arabic original was translated five times into the languages of science of these eras, viz. Medieval Latin, Byzantine Greek, and Hebrew. Despite the enormous impact of these translations on the history of the occidental medicine, so far, no complete reliable edition of the original is available. The aim of this project is the critical edition of books III until V of the seven books of Ibn al-Jazzār’s Arabic original, which will complete the applicant’s editions already published. The Arabic text will, again, be accompanied by a commented English translation. The present project builds on earlier projects funded by the DFG in 2009-10 and 2017-19, in whose framework books I, II, and VII (7-30) were edited. The submitter of this application has, in addition, already published editions of books VI and VII (1-6) in 1997 and 2000 respectively. In order to facilitate the use of the complete work, all seven books will be made accessible online in cooperation with the publishing house “Brill” (Leiden). A special focus of this project will be on the Greek and Arabic sources of the Zād al-musāfir, which can now be analyzed in their entirety.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom, USA
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Michael R. McVaugh