ABSTRACT
The Firdaws al-ḥikma (the Paradise of Wisdom), composed in the ninth century by ‘Alī ibn Rabbān al-Ṭabarī, represents the first medical encyclopaedia in Arabic. In this text, innovative and archaic elements are merged, and its composition mirrors the different streams of tradition brought together in the early Abbasid period. This chapter focuses, first, on the ‘science of properties’ (pharmacological, useful and occult ones), as it is attested in the Firdaws, in which Galenic ideas stand next to different approaches. In the second part, this contribution includes the translation of a number of selected passages with the aim of showing the thematic variety of the Firdaws. The author’s status as a multilingual scholar and his personal experiences enriched and gave a unique touch to this collection of scientific and literary materials.
