László Károly and Guglielmo Zucconi
A Turkic Medical Treatise from 17th Century Central Asia
(66th Annual Meeting of the PIAC Göttingen, 2024)
To this day, the cultural history of post-Timurid Central Asia remains a vastly underresearched field. In particular, the rich medical literature produced under the Neo-Chinggisid dynasties (the Abū’l-Khayrids, Aštarkhanids and ʿArabšāhids) has received very little attention. Among the many hitherto unstudied sources, the medical treatise titled Manāfiʿ al-Insān (IVRUz 4107) is of special significance owing to the fact that it was supposedly penned by Abū’l-Ġāzī Bahadur (d. 1663), Khan of Khwārizm, best known as the author of the Šajara-yi Turkī and of the Šajara-yi Tarākima. The work, of which only one manuscript is known to have survived, consists of an introduction, followed by an alphabetically arranged list of ailments each accompanied by the appropriate remedy.
In the first part of the talk, we will illustrate the structure and contents of the work, as well as the question of its authorship, with an eye to producing an edition and translation in the coming years. Next, we will lay out what this treatise contributes to our knowledge of the medical lore of early modern Central Asia.