The Encounter of Medical Traditions in Nūr al-Dīn Šīrāzī’s ʿIlājāt-i Dārā Šikōhī

Abstract

This paper discusses the ʿIlājāt-i Dārā Šikōhī by Nūr al-Dīn Šīrāzī1 which is one of the largest Persian medical manuals composed in Mughal India (1526-1857). Šīrāzī was a physician attached to the Mughal court and dedicated his work to the Mughal prince Dārā Šikōh (d. 1659). A major characteristic of the ʿIlājāt-i Dārā Šikōhī is its incorporation of Indian knowledge and it can be considered as one of the most important attempts of describing in the same volume both the features of Muslim and Indian medical arts. Another important intellectual feature of the ʿIlājāt-i Dārā Šikōhī is its synthesis of secular and religious medical traditions of Islam and it is certainly not fortuitous that a book like this was dedicated to a personage such as Dārā Šikōh, both a Sufi scholar and an eminent student of Indian traditions.