Scientists and the careers of science

Look at the expectation: it asks for the career, and for the education and training behind it. Ask where a scientist learned, from whom, and what that learning let them do.

Look for what the scientist wrote or made, and for who is speaking about them. Notice the difference between a scholar's own book and a later person's account of his life.

Read how one physician's path was checked. In the reign of al-Muqtadir the caliph asked the market inspector to forbid practice by anyone without a licence, after a man died under a treatment that had been badly given. The head of physicians, Sinan ibn Thabit ibn Qurra, then examined the physicians, excluding those of established reputation and the caliph's own physicians, and gave a document of medicine to those who passed ². From then on a person who had completed his training was examined before the head of physicians to receive a licence to practise medicine ². The record of the physician adds that the physician wrote on a paper the patient's condition, diagnosis, treatment and the medicines given, and that if the patient died the paper went to the head of physicians for investigation ².

The records read here preserve no sentence in which Ibn al-Haytham or Ibn al-Nafis says why he took up his science. What they show is what each did and how he lived. Ibn al-Haytham went to Egypt and tried to regulate the flow of the Nile; he gave up the task when he realised it was impossible, despite his fear of the caliph's anger ³. Back in Cairo he earned his living by copying scientific manuscripts, particularly mathematical ones ³. Ibn al-Nafis was the shaykh of medicine in Egypt; he also took part in jurisprudence, the principles of law, hadith, Arabic and logic ⁴, and he endowed his properties and his books to the Mansuri hospital ⁵. The records report no preface stating a religious purpose for either man.

Who headed the physicians in Harun al-Rashid's time? The entry reports from Ibn Abi Usaybia that Harun examined Bukhtishu ibn Jurjis, who came from Jundishapur, before the physicians of Baghdad, and then made him head of all physicians. The record calls this a report in a classical biographical work. The entry also notes that Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari named Abu Quraysh Isa as head of physicians in Harun's time, which would make the office older than the story ². The record gives both and decides neither.

It is easy to picture one fixed path into medicine, but the records show paths that changed. In the earliest period physicians practised once they had reached a level of learning and experience, with no condition or record ². In the Ottoman state training began as an apprenticeship in the dârüşşifâ, where trainees worked with the physicians ⁶. Opening an office needed a permit, given only when a place fell vacant by death, retirement or transfer ⁶. The entry does not cover the modern licensing of the profession in today's states ⁶.

The article on Ibn al-Haytham stresses that his biography has numerous gaps ³. The Encyclopaedia of Islam gives 430 AH/1039 for his death, a year that differs from the autograph date TDV reports, and the record does not collapse the reports into one certain date ^3 7. For the physician's path, the story of Harun and Bukhtishu is a report in a classical biographical work ², and the record lists works its entries name that were not read for it.

The records give two kinds of reason behind the licensing of physicians. One report ties it to a man who died under a badly given treatment. The TDV entry cites a hadith in Abu Dawud's book of blood-money, on liability for harm done by treating without knowledge, and holds that it influenced the creation of an official medical office ². Which explanation do you find stronger, and how would you defend it against the other?

• The physician: examination, licence, the hospital and the madrasa, from the Abbasid caliphate to the Ottoman state.
• Ibn al-Haytham: the gaps in his biography and the works the article lists.
• Ibn al-Nafis: the shaykh of medicine in Egypt and his endowment to the Mansuri hospital.