Sharaf al-Zaman al-Marwazi

Sharaf al-Zamān Ṭāhir al-Marwazī or Marvazī (Arabic: شرف الزمان طاهر المروزي; fl. 1056/57–1124/25 CE) was a physician and author of Nature of Animals (كتاب طبائع الحيوان البحري والبري Kitāb Ṭabāʾiʿ al-Ḥayawān al-Baḥrī wa-al-Barrī).

He was a native of Merv, part of the Khorasan region in modern-day Turkmenistan.

Nature of Animals

Al-Marwazī drew upon the works of Aristotle, Dioscorides, Galen, Oribasius, Timotheos of Gaza, Paul of Aegina, and the Muslim scholar Al-Jahiz. The work comprises five parts:^[1]

On human beings
On domestic and wild quadrupeds
On land and marine birds
On venomous creatures
On marine animals

Physician

Al-Marwazi served as physician at the courts of the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah I and his successors.^[2] As a physician, he recorded observations of parasitic worms.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b Egerton, Frank N. (2012). Roots of Ecology: Antiquity to Haeckel. University of California Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0520953635.
^ Hopkins, J. F. P. (2000). Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history. Princeton, N.J: Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 24. ISBN 1558762418.

Bibliography

Minorsky, V. (1942). Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir Marvazi on China, the Turks and India. London: The Royal Asiatic Society. p. 234. Retrieved 1 June 2023.

[Egerton-1] Egerton, Frank N. (2012). Roots of Ecology: Antiquity to Haeckel. University of California Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0520953635.

[2] Hopkins, J. F. P. (2000). Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history. Princeton, N.J: Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 24. ISBN 1558762418.

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