136 CHAPTER FIVE
text in his commentary on Aristotle’s Topics (104. b. 5– 18), was puzzled
by the fact that in Farabi’s words no outspoken contempt is noticeable.
Farabi speaks there only of the wrong assertions of “Galen the physi-
cian” ( Jalinus al-tabib).^56 Vajda considered this wording to be very mild,
but for Maimonides, Farabi’s statement was, apparently, far from being
neutral. As already mentioned, Maimonides uses the phrase “only a phy-
sician” to denigrate the philosophical qualities of both Muhammad b.
Zakariyya al- Razi and of Isaac Israeli.^57 Coming from the successful
physician that he was, his already famous formula of denigration, “only
a physician,” could seem a bit surprising. It is easily understood, how-
ever, if we consider the relative subordinate rank of medicine as a human
intellectual endeavor. Unlike Galen, who believed that “every physician
must be a phi losopher” and composed a treatise with this title, Maimo-
nides followed Farabi’s view, that every phi losopher must be a physician,
but not every physician is a phi losopher. It seems that for Maimonides
the description— in a philosophical context— of Galen as “the physician”
was in itself enough to conclude that Farabi had no respect whatsoever
for Galen as a phi losopher.
This suggestion is strengthened by a paragraph in the Kitab al- amad
ala al- abad of the Khurasanian phi losopher Abu al-Hasan al-Amiri (d.
992), who says:
Now Galen, in his time, having composed many works, aspired to
be described as wise— that is, to be called “the Sage”^58 instead of
“the Physician.” But people made fun of him and said, “Go back to
your ointments and laxatives, and to treating sores and fevers....
For he who testifi es against himself that he is in doubt whether the
world is without temporal beginning or created in time, and whether
the Hereafter is real or not, and whether the soul is a substance or
an accident, occupies too humble a rank to be called a Sage.”^59Like Farabi and Maimonides, Amiri criticizes Galen’s agnosticism con-
cerning the creation of the world; like Farabi, he mentions Galen’s being a
concerning the creation of the world; see J. Schacht and M. Meyerhof, “Maimonides against
Galen, on Philosophy and Cosmogony,” Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts of the University of
Egypt 5 (1937): 53– 88; Maimonides, Letters, appendix 2, 148– 67, esp. 162– 63; Bos,
Medical Aphorisms, xxv.
(^56) See G. Vajda, “A propos d’une citation non identifi ée dal-Farabi dans le Guide des
égarés,” Journal Asiatique 253 (1965): 43– 50; see also Rafiq al-Ajam, ed., al-Mantiqinda
al-Farabi, vol. 3: Kitab al- jadal (Beirut, 1986), 82.
(^57) Marx, “Texts by and about Maimonides,” 379– 80.
(^58) Or “the phi losopher” (an yunqal an laqab al-tabib ila laqab al-hakim).
(^59) See Rowson, A Muslim Phi losopher on the Soul and Its Fate, 74– 75.