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Ibn al-Nafis studies medicine under Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar at Damascus, before 628/1230

ابن النفيس يشتغل بالطب على مهذب الدين الدخوار بدمشق، قبل ٦٢٨هـ

c. 1230 CE · c. 628 AH

Damascus

Ibn al-Nafis studied medicine under the shaykh Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar, Damascus's shaykh of medicine and endower of the physicians' madrasa in the old goldsmiths' quarter, and he excelled in the craft and in treatment 1; al-Dakhwar died in 628/1230, so the apprenticeship predates that year 2 3. Tariq al-Suwaydan's al-Mubdi'un adds that a health crisis in 629 AH, when he was twenty-two, drove him to medicine, and that he enrolled at the Nuri hospital in Damascus studying under Muhadhdhib al-Din Abd al-Rahim and Imran al-Isra'ili 4 5.

Depth

At a glance

Era
The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era
Region
Levant & Iraq

In time

122012301240 c.
The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks · The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era

In space

Damascus

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

Summary

Ibn al-Nafis studied medicine under shaykh Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar, Damascus's shaykh of medicine, and excelled in the craft and in treatment 1; al-Dakhwar died in 628/1230, so the apprenticeship predates that year 2 3.

The al-Mubdi'un account

Tariq al-Suwaydan relates that a fever mishandled by physicians struck him in 629 AH at the age of twenty-two; it turned him against the doctors and set him on medicine. His father objected, then enrolled him at the Nuri hospital in Damascus, where he studied under Muhadhdhib al-Din Abd al-Rahim and Imran al-Isra'ili 4 5.

Connections

Explore the connections

Had participant
Ibn al-Nafis· Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar, shaykh of medicine
Occurred at
Damascus

People and things also explored

Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar, shaykh of medicine· Ibn al-Nafis· Damascus· Birth of the scholar 'Ala' al-Din Ibn al-Nafis at Damascus, c. 607/1210· the Cave of Qasyun (Jibril's Cave)· Qasr Hiraql / Qasr Shams al-Muluk· The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus· Gold-leaf glass mosaic tesserae (Umayyad)

Sources

  1. Tarikh al-Islam wa-Wafayat al-Mashahir wa-l-A'lam — al-Dhahabi , s.a. 687 p. 312
  2. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 3 p. 897
  3. Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p. 127-128
  4. Assabile archive of Tareq al-Suwaidan's lectures (video) , Al Mubdioune, episode 17, at 00:05:30 · Listen at the archive (opens the audio at this time)
  5. Assabile archive of Tareq al-Suwaidan's lectures (video) , Al Mubdioune, episode 17, at 00:07:30 · Listen at the archive (opens the audio at this time)
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Ibn al-Nafis studies medicine under Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar at Damascus, before 628/1230”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/ibn-al-nafis-studies-dakhwar-628/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-01.

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Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar, shaykh of medicine

al-Muhadhdhib al-Dakhwar — Damascus's shaykh of medicine, pupil of Ibn al-Matran and al-Radi al-Rahbi, who endowed the physicians' madrasa at the old goldsmiths' quarter; his income ran to 150 dinars a month plus an iqta' worth 6,500. Late in life an aphonia struck until his speech could scarce be understood — he wrote his answers on a tablet — and his harsh self-treatment brought fevers that drained him till his eye ran and he died, in 628.