A CRITICAL MIND 129
in Cairo.^22 And yet, neither of these two tells us much about Maimonides’
training. The claim made by Leo Africanus (alias Yuhanna al- Asad) that
Maimonides’ teachers in medicine were his great Andalusian contempo-
raries, Ibn Zuhr and Ibn Rushd, has been refuted.^23 Unlike the medical
training in the East, which was done either privately or in the framework
of established hospitals, al- Andalus had no hospitals at the time, and medi-
cal training often remained within the family.^24 What we know of Maimo-
nides’ medical education comes mostly from his own writings, where he
also recounts anecdotes relating to cases he had seen while accompanying
other doctors in the Maghreb.^25 The purpose of the following pages is not
to summarize these bits of information, which have been published before;
nor do I presume to venture into the history of medicine. Medicine and
science will be examined here only insofar as they help us draw a rounder,
more accurate intellectual profi le of Maimonides. Following the method
adopted throughout the present book, medicine will serve here to demon-
strate how a contextual reading of all the different pieces of information
can offer a deeper understanding of each of them.
In his entry on Maimonides (Musa Ibn Maymun al- Israili), Ibn Abi
Usaybia rec ords a panegyric poem composed by the Muslim scholar Ibn
Sana al- Mulk, in which the latter praises Maimonides’ medical skill, de-
scribing him in hyperboles as superior to Galen, and as the physician who
could cure the heavenly bodies from their chronic ailments.^26 The rele-
vant entry in Ibn al- Qifti’s work, on the other hand, is generally understood
as offering a rather poor opinion of Maimonides’ medical acumen. As
Gerrit Bos (following others before him) translates this text, Ibn al- Qifti
states that Maimonides “was not daring” in his practice,^27 and that he
“used to work with other physicians and would not rely on his opinion
(^22) See Lewis, “Jews and Judaism in Arabic Sources,” 176; and see chap. 3, notes 18, 31,
above.
(^23) Meyerhof, “The Medical Works of Maimonides,” 266n1; S. Munk, “Notice sur Joseph
ben Iehoudah,” Journal Asiatique 14 (1842): 31– 32; Bos, Maimonides on Asthma, xxv;
and see N. Z. Davis, Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth- Century Muslim Between Worlds (New
York, 2006), 85– 86, and note 91 on 309.
(^24) On hospitals and hospital training in the Orient, see, for instance, IAU, 414– 15 (about
Razi); about al- Andalus, see IAU, 517– 30 (regarding the Ibn Zuhr family); M. Marín, Mu-
jeres en al- Andalus (Madrid, 2000), 296– 97 (regarding the women of this family); and see
D. M. Dunlop and G. S. Colin, “Bimaristan,” EI, 1: 1222– 25.
(^25) See Davidson, Moses Maimonides, 28, 80, 85– 86; and see Y. T. Langermann, “L’œuvre
médical de Maïmonide: Un aperçu general,” in Lévy and Rashed, eds., Maimonide: phi-
losophe et savant, 275– 302, esp. 281– 82; G. Bos, “Maimonides’ Medical Works and Their
Contribution to His Medical Biography,” Maimonidean Studies 5 (2008): 244– 45.
(^26) IAU, 582; Rosenthal, “Maimonides and a Discussion of Muslim Speculative Theology,”
110.
(^27) Wa- lam yakun lahu jassara fi’l-amal; IQ, 317.