Refiguring Unani Tihb

Plural Healing in Late Colonial Inilia

*_

Gtrv N. A. ArrpwEn
The Welkome Tiast Centrefor
the History oJ Medicine
U niuersity College Lonilon

I
Orient Longman

The Wellcome Trusl Centre

ior the Hlstory ot llodlclno
 Contents

Preface viii
List oJ lllustrations xiv
List of Abbreuiations xv
Note on Diacritics xvi
1. Introduction 1
2. Contesting Knowledges: Plague and the Dynamics
of the Unani Profession 50
3. Models of Authoriry: The Place of Institutions in
the Unani Profession 96
4. Desi Tibb: Reform and'Narional'Medicine 147
5. Treating'Women: lJnani Tibbt Engagement
with Women 1.93
6. Hakirn-Patient Relationships: The Unani Journal
and Domains of Authoritative Practice 238

Conclusiott 278
Glossary 284
Bibliography 287
Index 303

xviix
 heface

The.authenticity,associatedwithparticularinheriteddiagnostic
and therapeutic modalities could itself be deployed as an
interven-
claims
tion to sutvert the powerful scientifi c-technological-cultural
of universalist'moJern' (orthodox' western' allopathic' cosmopoli-
Preface tan, or whatever you wish to call it) medicine' In other
instances' the
boundaries berr,veen the well-springs of therapeutic knowledge
in
tibbandorthodoxmedicinemightbedemolishedentirely.one
when
early-twentieth-century practitioner in Delhi made this clear
he reframed the 'traditional'knowledge of tibb (tibb qadlm' or old

accotnpanied me tibb)asthe.holyprogeniror'of'western'medicine(magfiribitibb),
There is so much to dol This is the feeling that has by elevating the Greco-Arabic rnedical legacy in Europe- and hrs
It as a Ph'D'
on every step of the journey that is this book' began ,rwn countiy.-We see here a tension at the heart of the professional-
Iiut really it t.g", ttf"t then, when my wife Malvika to
thesis.
European studies isation of tibb betr,veen local and universal modes of' and claims
turned me eastwards be]'ond the'West Asian and knowledge.'We follow this thread throughout the book' The
all-
Garcia d'Orta-'
which had till then consumed me' In the writings of embracing mass formations of modernising India were changing
physician r'vho travelled to Goa' I
a sixteenth-century Portuguese forever th"e ways that tibb hacl been transmitted and practised-
use of
found an openness ,o*..i, lt""i"g about the therapeutic throughnewrnedia,communications,politicalmobilisationandre-
from the maid-
.oot., 1..rr.r, fruit and other substances-whether preseritation, large-scale measures to control epidemic disease'
colo-
inspires me to
servant, the gardener or the court physician-which nial policy interventions, pharmaceutical production' universalist
to look beyond
this day. FIe was the catalyst that made me want science. Language, print, pharmacy, professional organisation
and
*h"t E.,.op.ans thought atout metltcal practices in India' although disease conception are thus themes in this book which
bring out
trajectory'
I cannot escape the paradox of my own position and some of the contestations and constraints encountered by practitio-
visiting practitioners of unani tibb
I)uring -y lorrg stays in lndia, ners of tibb as they reshaped their knowledge and practices of^tibb
struck by
and talking wrth their patients, I have been continually
in their changing enviro.tments' The decades at the end of the
which reflects
clifferences"in outlook and practice, a heterogeneiry nineteenth antl beglnning of the twentieth century ernerged as key
in
it. tr.g. number of stakes ih"t ptoplt have had practising and consciousness
formative times for the evolution of new professional
'unani tibb'. The stacts of brightly packaged unani and
p."a".l"g in tibb, and are therefore the focus of this study' The limitations of
over-the-counter products- lining the druggists'
stores
the study are obvious when one considers the hugeness of
India and
"y.rrr..ii.-
contrast with the horr.--"i. reme4ies of the
practitioner
-who
bought in the need to look further back in tirne for seminal developments
from raw lnaterials parts of
prepares his or her own medicines than I have done. This work really only develops themes in
io.rl ,rrrk The graduates of unani colleges who wanted.to traitr
ts. it in not being even more
the grades are on a different
north India and Hyderabad. Where lacks
as biomedical doctors but did not make localised in its orientation, it perhaps gains frorn its relative spread'
."..., prth than the graduates for whom tl:.:""-t'.t'yttt : fo11l- and its attempt to see common threads in diverse realtns
of practice
protesston rn
iry who anyway hadlearnt the particular skills of their and activiry.
not 'a-tradi-
t(err family's hereilitary practice' This was evidently I engaged witha wide variery of sources, at one poirrt placing
although I framed
tional medicine'surriving i., " .d.r..t, oi-y research interests in local newspapers in Hyderabad
rn
my thoughts in this *"y first learnt of the continuation of a
I".rodern'world, willing to help' who oth-
'i'ht" order to make contact with those people
Greco-Arabic-Persian medical tradition in contemporary
South
crwise would have been unknown to me' When I started
out' it
tibb as diverse sets of prac-
Asia. On reflection I came to understand quickly became clear that although much has been written' in
paradigm'
tices that continually collapsed the traditional/modern
*1x*
 PreJace Preface

Urdu, on tibb in India, a lot of it was of a certain kind, namely brief Medicine in New Delhi, in particular Mehr-e Alam Khan, and also
accounts of the lives and works of certain practitioners. This is an the staffat theJamia Hamdard in Delhi. My sincere thanks go also
extremely rich genre, but does not give much insight into process to Sadia Rashid, director of the Hamdard Foundation in Karachi
in the shaping of medical knowledge and practices. As for English- and daughter of the late respected Hakim Muhammad Said, for
lanp;uage historical studies of tibb, these are very Gw and fragment- welcoming rne to Madinat al-Hikmat, to Dr Zubairi for his interest
ary. Although, solne work is being done that is challenging our in rny work, and also to Dr LJsman Ghani for helping me with some
assulnptions about Indian medical 'systems', their construction, specific enquiries. Thanks, too, to Nausheen, Rafiq and Menaal for
methods and practices, interrelationships and contingency in the their warmth and hospitaliry.
social, economic, technological and political frames that gave them In Hyderabad-Deccan, I would firstly like to thank the tireless
shape. I see my work as a step towards a deeper understanding of the Syed Ali Yadullahi, who, on my first research trip to Hyderabad, led
interwoven worlds of tibb and the other streams of medical know- me from the library of the Henry Martin Institute to many of the
ledge and practice in India. There is still so much to be done. fascinating, rich second-hand bookshops near Charminar, and gen-
I may have spent the better part of four or five years working on erously devoted rnuch of his time and ener€ry trying to find materi-
the themes and the material of this book, but many people have als for me. I am also endebted to the generosiry of S. A. Hussain at
helped to bring this work about, contributing their time, thought the Indian Institute of History ofMedicine in Hyderabad, and to its
and energy. I am now h"ppy to have the opportuniry to say thank former director Momin Ali. I thank the director of the Henry Mar-
you to them all, or, if this is not possible, to thank most of them at tin Institute and the staff in its well-catalogued library. I thank Dr
least. The research for the original Ph.D. was funded by a doctoral Murali and the director of the Sundarayrya Vignana Kendram for
studentship from the.Wellcome Tiust. I thank them for their gener- introducing n1e to their rich collection in the process of their
ous support, in particular Tony Woods and Hal Cook. Sanjoy miraculous restoration efforts following the disastrous floods of the
Bhattacharya has encouraged me to get the thesis moving into book summer of 2000. The staffat the Government [Jnani Hospital and
form. It would rlot be happening now if it weren't for his tireless Nizamia Tibbi College were also helpful, especially Dr Bashir
energies and unstinting enthusiasm. Ahmed and Dr Abdulqadir. I would also like to thank the many
The prime research for this book took shape when I had the graduate and post-graduate students whom l met at the College for
good fortune to be supervised by David Arnold at SOAS. His the interest they showed in rrry work and the willingness with which
insights helped me to make sense of the range of material we dis- they answered some of my questions. I thank Sultan at the internet
cussed together. I thank Charles Burnett at the Warburg Institute in ca{6 near Birla Mandir for introducing me to Hakirn Muhammad
London for his support as supervisor of my M.A. dissertation, Isrnail, rvho generously allorved me to sit, rnany evenings a week, in
,'vhich launched nry interest in indigenous medical practices in his clinic, observing his treatment of patients and learning from his
India. I am very grateful for the interest Dominik Wujastyk, forrner knowledge. For this experience I am very grateful. I thank the help-
curator of Sanskrit manuscripts at the Wellcome History of Medi- ful staffat Hyderabadt daily newspaper Siasat,in particular the edi-
cine Library, has taken in my M.A. dissertation and subsequent tor Zahid Ali Khan, for running a small piece about my research
studies over the years. My next thanks €loes to Claudia Liebeskind, interests, which helped me to make contact with a number of prac-
who generously gave me details of a number of her contacts in titioners and members of the public who generously shared their
India and leads to follow up. These I found trernendously useful and knowledge and materials with me. I am particularly thankful to
helped me to establish links with unani practitioners on my first trip Mohiuddin and Hakim Muhammad Khairuddin, who let me and
to India. Hakim Zillurrahman ofAligarh was one such, from whose rny rvife benefit from spending some time at his clinic, provided an
knowledge, experience and generous spirit I have benefited. I would exhibition of raw rnedicinal drugs at his home and introduced us to
like to thank the staff at the Central Council Research in I-Jnani lris supplier of rnedicinal substances; to Dr Hashmi for giving rne

*xr. It3 ].i *

 PreJace Pre-farc

access to his private library; to Hakim S. A' Qadri in Balapur, who for her interest in rny rvork, to Markus Daechsel and the rnany oth-
let me .orrruli his private library and photocopy sonle of his material' ers rvho raised thought-provoking qLlestions at the Tuesday evening
I am grateful to the director and staffof the Andhra Pradesh State South Asia History serninars at SOAS; to Nilan;an' Rosie and the
Archivei in Tarnaka, and especially to Shankar and Qamr ul-Nisa rest who started out o1-l Ph.D.s at SOAS at the satue titne as I did in
Begum; I thank V K. Bawa for his interest in my work and his sug- the winter of 1999. A big thanks to Brian Black for his companion-
g.riiorr. for approaching the archives, and Margrit Pernau' even ship, the aninratecl discussions and for his enthusiastic support of
t"t o.rgt it w", ioo brief an encounter. My thanks are also
due to the gooa fbu,l and local north London traditions. I also would like to
direJor and the librarian at the lJrdu Hall in Himayatnagar, to the acknowledge Seerna Alavi'.s thought-provoking studies of tibb in
mosr cooperative staff at the Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Urdu in Sorna- the nineteenth century-the perspectives of her current work in
jiguda, r.ri the librarians of the Osmania lJniversiry State Central progress will aclci greatly to the uuderstanding of tibb during this
and Salar Jung Libraries. period.
I thank the bone-setters Hakim Ghularn Rasul and Sons in Shah I thank rny father and Angelika for all their support over the
Ali Banda for sharing their tilne and expertise with me and nry years, r,vhich enabled me ar the outset to develop firy research ideas
wife. am very grateful also to Muhanrmad Siddiq Ahmed' who
I on n1y first trip to lndia ancl to cornplete the origin:rl Ph'D' I thank
passed on to me a useful docurnent (and had a delicious shir khurma
nry mother for her wishes for me. And Malvikx-1yi1hou6 hs1
p..prr.d for us)'. I thank also Sadiq Naqvi, Hakim Syed Qudra- nothing of this would have happened. She gave rl1e the strength to
i"tt"tr, Hakima Kesar Mohini, S. M. Mustafa and the grandson of ride times when nothing was working out. This book has been a
forbe:rrance, ancl her perspi-
Hakim Syed Ali Ashufta. I am very grateful to my [Jrdu teachers, Journey for us both, and I admire her
caciry rvhich has applied from the beeinning and in every stage
Tahsin in Hyderaba<l and Simon Qadri in London, for helping me
she
to nry ll,ork. The shininll presence ofJalin and Anreya daily rnen-
cover texts more eftrciently and correcting my early rnisinterpreta-
aces nly work routine, and they may also, I cxpect, bc happy that his
tions. I thank also the photocopiers beside the Public Gardens and
father their bringing to an eud some long-enduring Arbcit'
onHydergudaMainRoatlfortheirpatienc:earrdskillsincarefully
making .opi"t of sonretimes delicate nlaterials' A very special thanks ln spite of all the thoughts and contributions of others, I take full
is duelo Fazluddin Ahnred of the Osr,ania University Lrbrary for responsibility for any errors and omissions in this work'
his friendship, generosiry declication and interest in my work' and
for his ,.. a librarian. A hearry thanks to Giri, Rekha' Rahel'
Viju and
"*p..iir.
Horh.rg for the lively companionship which they brought
,oiu stay in Hyderabad, and also to Buchamma for offering a place
for us to stay. Thanks to Ravi and Bhanu for their great-spiritedness.
In London I wish to thank Lawrence Conrad for his insights into
the history of meclicine in West Asia. I am grateful to the help given
by the knowledgeable librarians at the British Library, especially the
curator of Urdu materials Leena Mitford. At the-wellcome Library
for the History and ljnderstanding of Medicine, Nigel Allan for-
rnerly curator of the Oriental Collection, and to Nikolai Serikoff'
his successor, have made me feel very at hon-re in the iibrary's col-
lections, especially of Urdu printeil works' I owe rny gratitude also
to Mark Harrison, Francis Robinson and Avril Powell for their
constructive comments on my work; to Siobhln Lambert-Hurley

xxii*

I
 Introduction

The names 'unani tibb'or 'unani medicine',1 as this medical tradi-

tion has come to be known in South Asia,are etonce suggestive of a
history of great translocation in time and space. Tibb has been
embraced and shaped by peoples over the last thousand years in cul-
tures stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia to
North Africa, Hispano-Arabia and'Wesrern Europe in the west, to
Central, South and South-East Asia to the east. Tibb has also been
practised in an ad hoc manner in pockets of the South Asian dias-
pora, such as in East and South Africa, the Gulf States, Malaysia, the
UK and the USA, and tibbi insrirutions and organisations have
emerged in the diaspora as well. Interested individuals and practitio-
ners set up the Graeco-Arabic Medicine Sociery Inc. in Australia in
1,976,2 the Mohsin Instirute was founded in Leicesrer (J.K.) in
1978,and other institutions offering tuition in tibb have been set up
in the United States3 and most recently in South Africa where thi
| 'WtnAni'is Greek in Arabic,
referring to foundational theories in perso-Arab
Hippocratic and Galenic medical rraditions, and'1ibb, (.medicine,) derives
from the Arabic root ,/tbb/, from which stem the common (Jrdu cognates
tabib,.labibd,a,"d a.tibba ('medical practirioner', masculine and feminine singu-
lar, and plural nouns), .6ibbi and .gibbiya ('medical', masculine and Gmirine
adjectives). labib and hakim ('one who arbitrates'), both denote practirioners
o-f .1ibb, except that $akim can be used in other contexts, as a ritle for poets, and
for yindy or wise men, while .qabib always denotes a medical practitioner.
Both terms are used interchangeably in this book, although ii should be
noted that in the twenrieth century there is a tendency for some elite practi-
tioners to favow .labib over hakim,except in titles, in order to distinguish their
medical practice from the other associarioos of hakim- This booliuses tibb,
unani cibb and tibbi (adjectively) alternately. According ro current academic
convention 'Greco-Islamic medicine'is reserved for references to the tradi-
tion ouside South Asia, in addition to 'tibb', by which this tradition was com-
monly referred to in pre-modern Arabic and Persian works on medicine.
I- See http:/,/www.traditiondmedicine.net.aulgraecarb.htrn.
' In the USA there is, for instance, the American College of Unani Medicine,

*1*
 R,EFIGURING UNANI TIBB
Introduction
Ibn Sina Institute has been offering training in tibb and health care
were also being reworked and adopted or contested in various unani
from January 2005. This institute, initiated by Dr Rashid Bhikha,
circles during this period. There were then a number of competing
is afliliated to two of the main centres for tibb in South Asia, the
pressures that revolutionised the ways that unani knowledge was
Hamdard Foundation (Pakistan) andJamia Hanrdard (India). South
Asia rernains the hub for activiry in tibb: in practice, conlnrerce, transmitted, constituted and translated into practice.
print and institutional structures. It is in South Asia that tibb ac- Recent scholarship, as we discuss in greater detail below, has be-
quired the appellation 'unani'(Greek), for it was mostly known as gun to grapple with aspects of these tensions,but has not sufficiently
just tibb (medicine) or fuikmat in medieval Arabic sources. These engaged with important dimensions of the reform of tibb. Notions
trajectories of translocation from West and Central to South Asia persist in specialist and non-specialist media of unani tibb as a 'sys-
and beyond, raise the fundamental questions of how to frame the tem' of medicine which, without a nuanced theoretical definition,
relationship bervveen the various streams ofknowledge and practice reveal little about its dynanrisrn and heterogeneity, let alone the pro-
at specific times and places within a broadly defined tradition of cesses by which change takes place. Tibb continues to be unproblem-
tibb, and how to identift the processes (political, social, econornic, atically characterised with reference to a set of key figures, texts,
technological) that have either motivated or inhibited the elabora- theories and practices elaborated in tibb's textual tradition. Its status
tion of ccrtain forms of knowledge. In this book, these themes will as a Muslim profession in this period has gone unquestioned. And
be approached through the prism of authoriry as we examine the of great importance, the reform of unani tibb in the twentieth cen-
transformation and the fracturing of authoritative knowledge and tury has been viewed as primarily an erigagement with western
authoritative practices in tibb. firrrns of knowledge, power and practice. What we shall see, in fact,
The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century present is that the very notion of 'unani systern of medicine', as it has been
us with a time of critical irnportance for the development of tibb in trnreflectively ternred tlrroughout the twentieth century is itself a
South Asia, for exploring its heterogeneity and the tensions of its product of the colonial era, of the will to systematise, demarcate,
transformations. It r,vas a period of conjuncture. Political and reli- represent knowledge and practice as a coherent whole. Where de-
gious upheaval and mobilisation combined with crises of epidemic bates with colonial,/western rnedicine have been investigated they
disease, social and economic change in the negotiation of modern- lrlve in soil1e cases resulted in the unfortunate polarising of 're-
ity ancl the increasing use of lithographic print technology. The tirrrnists'and 'purists', which understates the complexiry of reform
authority of elite, principally the learned hereditary, practitioners .rtrd modernisation. These processcs were inescapable for urban
was being challenged by the proliferating use of lithographic print practitioners of tibb, even if they negotiated them in different ways.
'I'hc book attempts to move beyond the inrpact-response and ac-
by hakims (practitioners of tibb) new to the profession, in new forms
of comrnerc--ial enterprise. Printing in Urdu becarne essential for the r'ommodation-resistance paradigrns adopted by some ethnographers
dissemination of tibb to attract wider constituencies, as a new tech- .rrrd historians for the analysis of indigenous-colonial interactions,
nology which mediated authoriry. The privileged place accorded to rrr order to characterise the developrnent of rnedical thought and
hereditary practice was also being eroded by the emergence of new l)r':rctice in India's 'indigenous'rrredical traditions across a range of
\l)lrcres of professional activiry. The interactions between the 'colo-
forrns of professional structures and accreditation in the drive to
rrr,rl' :rnd the 'indigenous'u'ere highly varied and differentiated to
rnodernisation that large numbers of practitioners advocated. Med-
rlrc cxtent that it becornes difiicult to be satisfied with this dicho-
ical practices, technologies and knowledge imported from Europe
r,)nry at all. Although practitioners of tibb seeking to recast their
and North America or developed within the Indian colonial context
l,r,,ti'ssion were in many cases inspired by colonial-derived mod-
-organisational, educational, conceptual, technological-it
, ls is
which started offering online courses and certi6cationin2002;it is afiliated nul)()rtant to recognise that their adoption of these rnodels was not
with the Native American College of Natural Medicine. nt r..riqhtforward process, and cannot be characterised by the notion
*,2* *3*
 Introduction
REFIGURING UNANI TIBB

that the rnodernisation of tibb was inevitably frarned by the param- Writing Tibb\ HistttrY
eters of western medicine and science.
In the two following sections of this introduction I will show that
The five chapters that follow develop a nunrber of different the- unani tibb-belying its multiple translocations-sits awkwardly
rnc's, e;rch one beins in eflect a case study examining a particular
betrveen European historiographical traditions developed during
disc:rse cornplcx, a nerv fcrr-rn ofprofi-'ssional organisatittn,:r new form
the nileteentircentury. This legacy tnay shoulder the blane for the
of professional engaecment, in which the linkages betlveen nreclical relativc neslect oftibb in lndia in rvestern scholarship, and it addi-
authority ancl nrcclical knolvleclge trnd practicc in the sphere of tibb tiorally hai irnplicatio's ftrr the rvays that tibb has been pro3ected i,
are examined. The book explores dotnains that were of acute public
general rvritings on nteclicine and history in Ir-rdia'
concern, such as epidernric outbreaks (wherc it focuses on plague in My .,)rr...r, r,vith studying unani tibb in South Asia arotlncl the
particular) but dso l.nattcrs of c'veryday life ancl intiuracy, rvhere it dis- turn of thc twentieth century stancls in relation to a wealth of schol-
cusses unani tibb and the trcatrnent of rvotnen'.s and tnen'.s disorders
rrship ou tibb in West Asia written over the last 150 years' This
and their societal contexts. It cxplores unani culture in Hyderabad schoiership has foc.sed .n'Wesr Asia rvithin the Abbasid period
and in north India, in rclatior-r to etnerging instittttions, ner.v forrns (750-1251). Therse spatial ancl tenrporal bounclaries are relatccl to
of professional organisation and print cuitr'rre. The cornposite strands the lincteelth-century construction of this period, especially the
of tire book are not intendccl to provide a cottrprehensivc analysis of ninth to the elevcnth centttries, as the'golden age'clf learning ancl
the state of unani tibb ttr early-twentieth-century lncli;r. Each one litcrlture in Islanr. Tire fallaciousness clf this construction is easily
of these dotnains coulcl bc :rmplified as new materials fr-our different e xposed, especially as one takes into accrogrlt
the vibrant strallds of
rcsions rn lndia-llengal is an obvic'rus onrission in rny rvork-are practice and learning outside this time frarne, in the ottorDan
researched, ancl there are of course other thetnes which could have ir,rrpir". Iran a,d South Asie. But the fixation u'ith the 'uolden age'
been investigated. Notwithstanding these liruitations, the structure lr.rs also had other leg:rcies, lvhich relate to thc understanding of
of this book reflects thc overarciring anrbitittn both to clrarv atten- rrrrrrni tibb as a 'systen-L'of rncclicine ancl tcl thc understanding of thc
tion to divcrsity, contplexity atid contingency in early-tr,venticth- t cntrelity of the urrani textual tradition. Thc'ref<rre, before we en-
celrtury tibb as rvell as to be able to point to the thre;rds r,vhich iink q.rqc \.vith the principal the'rnatic concerns of tlris book in sections
apparently diverse domains of theory and practice. i,, fir11ou.,, ,r" t.,r, briefly to exanline 'solden-lseisrlr', tibb antl
Thc conceptual startins point of the book is not to reify tibb as I,l.rrrr. tibb rncl 'lnclian'meclicine and then ideas of tibb as a rnedical
nreaning 'sttch and such a bocly of knorvleclge and practice', but .,\,src111. These sections not only have a clircct bearing on thc discus-
rather to exrnrine. in a number of diverse scenarios, the different .,r()r)s of heter6geneiry and trapsft>r111atioll of tibb in this book. but
ways that unani knowledge has been constituted and the social or rlro irrtroduce the subject of tibb iIr the Indian subcontinent in its
politic:rl conditions in which this happened. It rvill be rnade clear in lrr,tor-ictgraphical contexts and hor.v the periods of efllorescence,
the explor:rtion of these dourains that the evolving tibbi profession .t,rqn:ttion and decline in tibb h:rve be en construcrted'
was engaged in various forms of clialogue: with itself (evident in
the articulation of the cornpeting interests of its own practitioners),
lir'1,ontl the Colden Age
with healing practices and traditions that adhered nrore closeiy to
Islamic doctrines, with a variety of other medical practices-folk, 1,, l ()()(r the respected historian of Arab-lslamic culture, A. I. Sabra,
private and state western (allopathic/colonial medicine) and ayur- , ,ll,.,l lirr-the need to localise the study of Arabic sciences.r He rvas
vedic-and nlost ilnportantly rvith the public. The public were its ,,.1r trrrg,.rsainst philological and text-based approaches that in his
patrons, and practitioners of tibb sor-rght to reach out to them, pro-
jecting in the process varied perspectives on authentic and legiti- \ I \.rlrr.r. "situating Arabic Science: Localiry versus Essence"' Lsil 87, 1996'
rnate unani knowledge and practice. r,,I r'o

x-+x x5*
 RIFIGURING UNANI TIBB Introduction

view frequently did not pay adequate artention to the social, politi_
in European and American academies. Their work also encouraged
cal and econornic contexts in which the texts that schorars editea,
the idea of this period being seen as the 'golden age' of lslamic
translated and elucidated were produced. His charge could be
civilisation.
applied as well to Greco-Islamic medicine as to other branches of
Scholarly interest in lslarnic rnedicine and sciences has been ,:han-
inquiry into sciences in Arabic, even though by the 1990s there was nellecl to this period and to this region, that is, roughly from Bagh-
a growing body of work that attended to the situation of the text, f.h.rr historical study of the Greco-lslailric medical
dacl westwar,lr.
those of Lawrence Conrad, Michael Dols, Nancy Gallagher, lrmeli
radition not only in South Asia, but also in Iran and the Ottoman
Perho and Emilie Savage-Srnith, to name a few.5 The primacy of Empire have until recently been overlooked.'' without wishing to
the text and the philological rrerhod dates back, in relation to the oversimplifi the activities of a number of scholars, the construction
stucly of Islamic sciences, to mid-nineteenth-century Europe, and in European scholarship of the golden age was partly governed by
necds to be seen in the context ofbroader scholarly representation the urge to establish , ,.nr. of European scientific heritage through
of Islam and the 'Orient'.(,As Said has denronstrated, the pioneer- history. According to this construction, Arabic versions of Greek
ing French philologist Erncst Renan's representation of science in philosophical ancl scientific works in this period were valued pri-
Islarn was clearly .elated to his notions ofwestern cultural and polit- ,narily ., ,.ptrrito.ies of classical knowledge'r" This passage frorn
ical superioriry.T The famous Ger,ran orientalist Ignaz Gordziher's F,. T. Withington's Medical History -frttm the Earliest Times rypifies
a

influential account of an 'orthodox' Islamic reaction in the four- ('()lrrmon sentinlent:

teenth century against scie,ces, derived fi-orn Greek sources, has
been shown to have more relevance to the politics of his day than to It was this peopie [i.e. Arabs/Muslims] who now took from the I'rands of
unworthy i.r.i.rro., of Clalen and Hippocrates the flickcring torch of
his purported topic of study.s Influential scholars of the history of
Greek medicine. They failed to restore its ancient spiendour, btrt they
at
lsla,ric science, philosophy and especially medicine were Ferclinand lcast prevented its extinction, and they handed it beck after five centttries
'Wiistenfeld,
Mauritz Steinschneider, Lucien Leclerc, Carl Brockel_ l,.,rrring more brightly than before'1i
mann, Edward G. Browne and Paul de Koning. Their procligious
'l-he Arabist and historian E. G. Browne, who quoted this passage'
enterprise focused on texts produced in the Abbasid period (750-
1254), especially those composed from the eighth to the eleventh ,lrtl not agree with the overstated chronology, but he did concur
centuries. Their translations and edited texts have provided essential
, see Arslan Terzio[hr, Bcitrige zur Geschidtc -clrr
material for the study of medicine and Islamic culture in west Asia lrrr the ottoman Empire,
'Tcchnik (Istanbul: Isis verlag,
l'tirkisth-lslantischen Midizin, lvisscnschalt tmd
l,),)(r). For Iran, Horrnoz Ebrahimnejad,Lfcdicine, Publk Lledlth and the Qa-iar
5
Lawrence conrad, "scholarship and Social contexr: A Mecricar case fro,r
\t,tt(: Pdtt?fns o-f Medical Mttdernization in Nineteenth-ocntury lran, Sir Henry
the Eleventh century Near Easr", in Knowledge and the sthorarry Medical ria-
WCllcorne Asian Studies 4 (Leiden, Boston: Briil, 2004); For nitreteenth-
ditions, ed. Don Bates (Car,bridge: Carnbridge lJruversity press, 1995), g5* ( (.nrrrry Egypt, see Khaled Fahmy, "Medicine and Power: Tou'ards r Social
100;Michael Dols, "The origins of the Islamic Hospiral: Myrh and Realiry",
I trsrrrrlr oiiVledicirre in Nineteenth-Century Egypt", Cairo Ptpcrs in Social
Bulletin oJ the Hktory ttf Mediine 61, 1987,367-90; M. Dols, Majnun: -i-lte '\, t t t ( 23, riro. 2, 2000, p. 1-46.
t t
Madnmn in Islanfu Medieual soriery, ed. Diana E. Immisch (oxford: crarendon
I lr.rvc given a more thorough e-xamitration of the golden age 11d scholar-
Press, 1992); Nancy Galiagher, Medicine and power in Timisia, 17g0-1900
,1,,1, ,,,r'(;reco-Islamic medicine in Guy Attewell, "Islamic Medicines: Per-
(Cambridge: Cambridge lJniversiry Press, 1983);Irmeli perho, The prophet,.s
1,,1, rrr.cs on the Greek
Legacy in the History of Islamic Medical Traditions
A Creatittn ttf the Mtrslim Tiaditionalkt Schorars, Studia orientalia 74
Medicine:
,,, W,.,t Asia", in Metliini Auoss Cuhures: History antl Pntctice oJ fuIedicinc ,in
(Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Sociery 1995).
6
,...,,rr
lli.:tcrtt cultures,ed.Helaine Selin (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publish-
Edward Said, Orientalism,rev. ed. (London: penguin, 1995). ,,. ,(x)]),325-50.
1
tbid.,12sf . r )rr,,r, rl rrr E,clward G. Brou'ne, Islamic Nledicine, rev' ed' (New Delhi: Good-
8
Dimitri Gtrtas on Goldziher, in Creek Thotght, Arabic Cuhure (London, New ,. ,,r,1 Ilrroks, 2oo1),67-68 [First pubiishedas Arabian Medicine (cambridge:
York: Routledge, 1998), 173f. { ,r r rl,r r(lljc Untwrsiry Press, 1921)].
;t*6* x'7 *
 RIFIC;URING UNANI TIBB Introductiott

no
with the feeling that the importance of 'Arabian'medicine 1ay in its Islam as such cannot be blarned for this absence, since there is
role as a repository of Greek knowledge. Embedded in this argu- evidence of such prohibition in any Islamic codes of law'1t'
nlent is the question of originaliry; the basis of this viewpoint is the The rnost important reason why Greco-Islarnic medicine lvas
seen to decline was, however, laid at the door of Islam' In
lines of
contention that the Arabs did nor creatively develop the Gr-eek
reasoning very lnuch in tune with the historiography of the nine-
medical learning which they inherited.
tcenth .J.t,rrry Bi.irgel argued that there was an 'orthodox'Muslim
A 'golden age'entails 'decline', and this was explained by Renan,
Goldziher and others in terms of the rise of Islamic 'orthodo>,ry'. reaction to Gieek sciences and that it manifested itself in the medi-
This kind of explanation has been quite persistent, but has been cal sphere with the emergence of a rival medical tredition that
derived its authoriry f.om ih. Prophet' This was tibb al-nabi
(medi-
recently challenged in the writings ofDimitri Gutas.rr In relation to and actions of
cine of the proph.t) which was baied on the sayings
tibb,J. C. Btirgel, contributing to Charles Leslie'.s Asian Me dical Sys- medicine and health as
the Prophei"r-ti hi, .orrrpanions concerning
tems as recently as 1976,rernains locked in this paradigm. He framed and conduct
compiled in ltatlitJt literature (narratives of the sayings
the regressive shift in this way: "After a golden age from about the
of th. Prophet and his companions)' In Biirgel's positivist hlstory
tenth to the rwelfth century, Arabic nredicine calne to a standstill,
writing, tibt al-nabi represenied one of the 'hothouses of irrational-
which gradually changed inro a slow decline leading to the most about
irrrr', rJhi.h, along with alchenry, astrology and rnagic brought
deplorable decay imaginable".rr Instead of exploring unani rnedical the dernise of Gaten''s natural philosophy, "long before his super-
knowledge on its own terms, Btirgel ignored its very evident lack of cession by the progress of European science"'r7
decline in terms of the increasing knowledge of herbal, mineral and A moie sophirtl.t..1, situational study of tibb al-nabi' by lrrneli
anirnal remedies that were incorporated into unani phannacopeia Petho, has recently underlined the absorption, not the Cisplacement'
as unani medical practice becarne, for exarnple, mor-e intimately ,rf Galenic rnedical theory in tibb al-nabi. The "lslarnic dethrone-
connected to the wealth of Indiat medicinal substances and know- nrent of Galen" rhat Biirgel wrote of is not only difhcult to counte-
Asian .o.,1.rrr, but is a wholly inappropriate way of
'West
ledge of how to use them, from the fourteenth century onwards. nance in
Instead Biirgel rneasured progress and decline by reference to tra- rhinking of tibb in South Asia.rs For Birgel, unani tibb rvas extrin-
jectories of thought in Europe and to the challenging of the autho- sic to
.Islamic culture" in contrast to ayurveda's relationship with
rities of ancient knowledge. The 'decline'of tibb was then partly a 'lnclian culture'. With this statement he wished to ernphasise an
,.ssential alienness of tibb, as a Greek 'systenl" in the Muslim
lvor-ld,
function of the lack of an 'evolutionary conception of science' in
tibb. This perceived 'fault'coupled with lack of technological inno- I rt'rrce its'decline'-
Instead Biirgel could have chosen to see the vitaliry of tibb,
the
vation nleant that practitioners could not "[pierce] the veils of
rv.rvs in which-Galenic medicine becanre absorbed within a variety
nature and thereby [break] the Gtters of the Galenic systern".rr The
'.progress' of European science was the standard by which Biirgel ,,1 t ultural contexts, whether in Islarnic West Asia, Iran' South Asia

calibrated the history of tibb. Surgery was progress, but it could not ,,r t.lsewhere. And no one can seriously question that tibb has been
advance further since "dissection of human bodies ... was strictly rrrt'xtricably part of Indian Islarnic culture' Biirgel was evidently
The
prohibited by Islam".15 As Emilie Savage-Smith has recently shown, rirrr,lccl by', det.r-ination to pitch science against religion.
,,,lturc-bound relationship between tibb and Islam' however' is
12
,rr,,l..rri:rble, even if it is not inevitable. Tibb can be connected, quite
Grtas, Creek Thought.
'r1oh"rr.r Chnstoph Biirgel, "secular and Religious Fearures of Medieval
Arabic Medicine",in Asian L[edical Systenrs: A Cttnrparatiye Sndy,ed.Charles Medieval Islam"
Leslie, reprint pelhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998), 53. 1.1995,67-110.
rr Ibid.,53.

'5 Ibid., 53-54.

xtit( x9;tr
 R,EFIGURING UNANI TIBB Introduction

legitimately, with the inteilectual and poriticar concerns

of Muslim a work Thkmila-yi Hindi.22 It is not yet clear when '[y]unani'is first
ruling elites in the subcontinent, as some historians have used to qualify'tibb'in the body of a text,although this will cer-
done.
tainly be found only in texts written in the subcontinent (and not
Tibb/'Unani tibb, ,Islami tibb, West Asia) . Speziale has suggested that the use of [y]unani to
'What describe this tradition increased in the nineteenth century among
has become mostly known today as .unani tibb,was practitioners keen to link their tradition to a European scientific
com_
monly reGrred to in Arabic and persian medievar medicar heritage in order to legitirnise their use of western rnedical disci-
literature
simply as tibb (medicine) or hikmat (a word linked erymologically plines and to consolidate claims to science. It is not clear, horvever,
with terms for arbitration, discernment, wisdom, gorr.rr"rJ.;. how the appellation 'yunani'spread in the way that has been sug-
Arabic and Persian texts of the pre-colonial periodlthe
L
naming of sested among the many strata of tibbi practice in the different re-
texts often reflected the personalised and *ortly eions of the subcontinent.
courtly settingi of
learned textual production. Thus there were texts Of the many names by which tibb has been qualified, one to
named after the
patron, as exemplifiedby fakhirah-i Nizam shahi (The which some have adhered over the last century is 'Islaml libb' (lslanric
Tieasures of
nredicine). The eminent scholar of Islam, social reformer and poet
Irr_1- Shah), an amplified ranslation by RustomJu{ani of a rvork
by Ibn Baitar on simple medicines. Rustam Shibli Numani (1857-1914) of Lucknow referred to tibb as lslami
Jurjani attended the
court of the Nizam Shah Burhan I (1508-1553f in the ri b[ as did other writers, such as Rehber Faruqi of early-twentieth-
Deccan.le
Mir'f il-Hukama'-i Aurang'shafii was a persian translation of an ( cntury Hyderabad, who compiled his history of tibb under this
ayurvedic work, Nidan, by Abr.r Fath Chishti, also composed
during title in 1937.Just as the use of the term 'unani'may be seen to con-
the reign of Aurangzeb (1659-1707).'?o Additionaily,
texts *... r..-
solidate the theoretical Galenic basis of tibbi knowledge, 'Islami'
qu jntly narned after the authors. For instance ritrb implies that the defining characteristics of tibb are seen to lie
, Tibb_i Akbari was
written by Muhammad Akbar alias Muhammad Arzani (d.1722), u'ith its Islamic heritage over and above other considerations. The
a court physician of the Mughal rurer Aurangzeb, in ,ir.'ncral characterisation of tibb as 'Islamic', juxtaposed to Hindu
17(j0 after
Aurangzeb's conquest of the Deccan., Other"common .rl rrrveda, finds itself unproblematically replicated in rnost acadernic
rypes of
titles-refer to the subject matter, such as the ,Ilaj al_A1fi|o, rr,r itings on nre<iicine in India today. This replication represents a
,..",irg
the diseases of children and i,fants by Sayyid Aoar of thinking about tibb that again does little more than obscure
Hakim Shifa-i 'r'.ry
Khan in Hyderabad in the eighte",-,th c..rt,rry. Works published rr lurt is, in fact, a subject o1'great historii:al complexiry-the contin-
in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries continue to .rr. r,,( nt lnd fluctuating relationships over tirne between tibb and the
both the
subject matter and author for book titres, such as r,rr rt'd religious, ethical and political streams of Indo-Islamic cul-
Tibb-i lhsani, com-
posed by Hakirn ihsan Ali (published in Lucknow, r , rrt . This book responds to the need, thcrefore, to pay closer atten-
1911).But, as
Fabrizio Speziale has recenrly pointetl out. physician, rrrr11 [1; the ways that the relationship between Islamic culture in
i, th. oire_ lrr,lr,r rrnd tibb was con{igured in different contexts during the
teenth century began to employ the term yunaniin the
titles of their
works. The first such use he identifies as a late_eighteenth_century l,, r rotl under study, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
work titled rhkmila-yi yrnani by Shah Ahl AIah, wi., alro l,rr tlrrs purpose it is necessary to take a longer view of tibb and
.orrrpor.i l .l.rrrrrt culture in lndia and how representations of tibb have been
t'copy \\ (,\( rr toqcther rvith Islarn.
held in the'wellcome Library for the History and lJnderstanding
Medicrne flI/LFIUM), Manuscript'W'MS.per.217.
of
_,,
r.' WI-HUM, Manuscript \VUS.pei.: i. I rl,r rzro Speziale, "Linguistic Strategies of De-Islamization and Colonial
-' Copres held in '!r r( ri (' lrrrlo-Muslim Physicians and the Yilnaru Denomination",Intena-
WTHUM (Manuscripts VZMS.per.172,564,566,563,197,
316,165,454,565). rr,,rt,l ltt:t;trrtL' lor Asian Studies Newsletter 37,2005,18.

*10x x 11 x

T
 Introduction
REFIGURING UNANI TIBB
has suggested that
emohasis on political exigencies 1f.:ht lt-t:He
werc following models of
One way of framing this relationship has been to invoke the governance
;#ffi#t';i B,sh;;: the political im-
beginnings of the practice of tibb in the subcontinent, which is clf eastern Iran-under
adopted by Sassaman
necessarily associated with Muslim Presence in India. No adequate, '"f*'
peratives of Zoroastnt" tt"t"A'
* order to lay clainr to their legiti-
annexed
in-depth, analytical study of tibb in this period has been done, mate rtrle, in tht n'mt "if
i'*' over the peoples of newly'their
i^"tti"' tttlt' adiacent to new
although there is an abundance ofjournal articles and chapters in territories p,"'io"Iy tJ'at'
bt that just as physicians
books on aspects of unanit history in this time. For now we have to c.rpital, Baghthd'r'. rt 'it"fa 'fto 'ottd
be content with a rudimentary sketch which should in any case h*rarchy of Sassanid elite sociery so
occupied hrgh posttro;;;;t in the Abbasid intpe-
serve our purpose here to show how, on a political level, the con- they canre to bt be'to*ed caliphal PatronagP
nections between Islamic culture and tibb in India may be appre- r i ar c.rpitar M,,y
-"i;;."
il;;;J
11.;i.l;'Jlri,t"'"t'f*t,
hended. Tibb was introduced into the Indian hinterland following ;r'i"""'a'r'.
the Muslim invasions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (ports ;',1:ff1fi:':li*1:ff'1H:ii.:T'.[:i']"iil'ffi
which tilt-f"""J"ions for tibb in the subcontinent
along the Malabar and Tiavancore coast and the seaboard of Ceylon tedrock on
sources also appear in
Arabic
which traded in medicinal substances had likely sustained Practices werc laid. Rcfet"nce' to ayurvedic
and knowledge of materia
associated with tibb prior to the twelfth century). More inportant rrre<lical writings' Ay';;t;1;'tn1"tl* physician-authors'
for the acculturation of tibb/Islam in India than 'invasion'as such, *... kt'o*i-";;;;'o*t.Pt"o-Arab
'redica ari uin Rabban al-Tabari is cred-
cited in rnany of the historical treatments of Islam in India, was per- The Firdaws A'u'e*iti'|-'isi]iLv
ited as being the n*t'J"'ft
i" At'bit to elaborate on theoretical
haps the settling of Muslim peoples migrating from Central and t;li ir'";gr" to have had little influ-
'West
Asia during this period, a Process accelerated by displacements ]spects of avurveda,;;'d;;h compen-
caused by westward Mongol incursions into these regions, the heart- ence on subsequent ;;;t"i writings'2r in addition' in his physician al-
clious work o, -.ai.*. , al-Hau,r,-the te.nth-century
lands of tibbi practice. Trade routes, such as the Silk Road linking and Sushrut (Suiruta sanhita)
China to Central, West and South Asia, were likcly to have been I{azi quotes ch"'JiZ;; ['T'ii,"ul
drugs'
.r",fra use ancl nature of various
important loci for the exchange and diffusion of therapeutic know- Islarn' eiite culture and tibbi
The connectio"''it"t*Jt" f"fnit'f
ledge and medicinal substances. twelfth centuries in the Abba-
f";;;;;;;;ti
io
practice fostered 't" of power
As a learned proGssion gleaned frorn the knowledge and tradi-
tions of ancient peoples-Greek, Persian, Indian and, likely to a cer-
sitl empire *"" ""'"toittJf"U"*lngbytle establishment
Turkic and Afghan poten-
l,,rses itr nortir ancl;;;;;;tt
lndia
tain extent, Chinese-with its erninently useful practical applications, lcgitinracy over their
t.rtes. Thcy t,'i"*'ry i";
i*l,;' to confer their
to their courts and
tibb grew and became associated with ruling classes from the tirne physicians
when its first medical texts were translated into or ccmposed in rrcu'territorit' "t'J;;il';";ni
ploye d th" i" tht iu nilitarv t *'].-,:ii c
Arabic (c.750 c.r.). While many of its practitioners and transmitters
,' I r r

tlrirteenth
"
to the sixteenth centurres' as
rn #r:TI J:iT.t::t,11;
from the mid eighth to the eleventh century were Jews or Chris- o[ establishing h.spitals funded
r .rrrinuctr a west nrir"-pr...aent
tians, unani tibb was born in the intellectual environment fostered their conirol' intended' pri-
by the socio-political ambitions of the nascent Abbasid caliphate l,y c.dowme"' i"1;"';5'"'i"t "'att bin
rri.rrily, ,o dt"lo""'"it iat"f'
of lslamic chariry' Muhammad
(750-1254). The incumbent Abbasid caliphs al-Mansur, Harun al- founder of the Tugldaq dynasry
Rashid and al-Ma'mun encouraged the gathering of available lirqltlaq (.. 1325-;;; tf" '"" "itf'e
knowledge in a vast array of fields, including Aristotelian and neo-
Hip- ' ( irtt:ts, Creek T'hought' (Frankfurt am
Platonic philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and Galenic and Hiknrar:-or Plydke of Wisdonr
pocratic medicine in Syriac and Arabic translation. In order to ;t )-'ililui'ti' Fi"l""'u'I
of Arabic-lslamic Science at lohann
Wol[-
it ,,,,, r,"u,r.i,. for the History
account for this translation activiry on a scale hitherto unprece- 1996)'
r,..rr rli ioethe Universiry
(
dented, Dimitri Gutas has introduced a 'nvelcome, and persuasive,
x13x
x12x
 Intrcduction
R-EFIGURING UNANI TIBB
century such as Bhagvat Sinh Jee,27 and the claims of many
of Delhi, was reputed, according to contemporary chronicles, to
nineteenth-century British commentators that with Muslim rule
have established as many as seventy during his rule.2s While some of
the subcontinent entered an era of despotism and civilisational de-
these hospitals were doubtless modest structures with lirnited re-
cline.28 Although there were large nurnbers of hakims employed in
sources aimed at housing and treating the sick-poor and itinerants,
the courts of Indo-Islamic rulers-Rezavi notes a preponderance
some were obvious manifestations of authoriry wealth, status and
of Irani physicians in the Mughal period-it has been established
Islamic chariry like the Dar ash-Shifa of sixteenth-century Hydera-
that ayurvedic practitioners and surgeons were also patronised.2')
bad (see chapter 3).
In addition, the composition of ayurvedic works and their transla-
The way that the history ofunani tibb in India has been generally
tion into Persian were supported by sorne Mughal rulers, as will be
written,by the likes of O. PJaggi, Ashok Bagchi, Kausar Chandpuri,
apparent below
Rehber Faruqi, Syed Zillur Rahman and Altaf Azni, reflects the
centrality of the royal or noble 'court' to authoritative, professional
unani activities (literary, educational and practical), and as an impor- 'Unani' Tibb and'Indian' Medicine
tant source of patronage for ayurvedic practitioners as well, it should
The question of the links between tibb's ancient heritage and its
be underlined. These histories generally give brief but valuable long history in the subcontinent were taken up in the 1998 annual
inforrnation on the lives of these physicians, their employers and
meeting in Delhi of the All India unani Tibbi Conference, an
their literary or scientific accomplishments, grouped under the ruler'.s
organisation which rcpresents the interests of unani practitioners at
name or that of the ruling dynasry in which they served. Zillur
a national level in India. One of the speakers there, a hakirn of some
Rahman'.s work stands out lbr his treatment ofa wide range ofissues.
repute, called for unani tibb to be renamed as Hindustani tibb, for,
Among these historians it is generally considered that a slightly
he argued, the formative influence of unani tibb's history in lndia
abridged Mughal era from the time of Babur in the early sixteenth
was stronger and more relevant to tibb today than its Greek legacy.r"
century to Aurangzeb in the early eighteenth represents the apogee
In proposing tibb as a medical tradition bound with society and
of tibb in the subcontinent (although the hakims of the Asif Jahi
culture in India this hakirn rvas by no means the first.I Throughout
dynasry of Hyderabad (frorn 1724 to 1948) and those in the employ
the twentieth century there has been considerable arnbiguity latent
of the Sultans and Begums of Bhopal are granted some special dis-
pensation). This was also the height ofMuslim political authoriry in
the subcontinent.
S. N. Sen and B. V. Subbarayappa (New Delhi: Irrdian National
D. M. Bose,
The histories of tibb and Islam have also been conflated in another Science Acadenr,v, c. t97 1), 2(t2*66.
brand of an Orientalist civilisational decline paradignr developed in r7
Bhagav,rt Sinh Jee, A
Short Histttry ttf' Arynn Medical Sriorrc (London, New
India. The apparent connections between Islam, Islamic rule and York: Macmillan & co., 1896).
as a learned mant discipline, have in some neo-orientalist
28
tibb Richard Eaton, Essay-r ttn Islam and Indian Hr-sttrry (New Deihi: Oxford Uni-
and/or Hindu nationalist readings of the past been accorded the versity Press, 2O0O), 9-44.
r')
N. Rezavi, "Physicians as Professionals in Medieval India", in Disease and
responsibiliry for the so-called demise of ayurveda during Muslim
Medkine in Sttcicty: A Histttrical Ouen'ieu,, ed. Deepak Kurlar (New Delhi:
rule. In one vein of this kind of argument, for example, the historian Tirlrka,2001),40*65;Jaggt,Medidne in Medieual India:k.Sigal6a, I-a lvlidecine
R. C. Majumdar noted that alongside compelling internal prob- Tradiriondlt de I'ltde: Doilrincs Priv(diquc, l'idiquc, Ayun'(diqte, Y,gique ct
lems, it was because of tibb and the procliviry of Muslim rulers Thntrique: lts Enpereurs lv[oghok, laurs Maladies et leurs Midecln-s (Geneva:
towards it that ayurveda ceased to be a vibrant social and intellectual Olizane, 1995).
t"
enterprise.26 He echoed writers on ayurveda frorn the nineteenth All India Unani Tibbi Conference, Delhi, November 1998.
1r
cites a similar proposition by a well-known hakim of Lucknow,
F. Speziale

25 Hakim Abd ul-Latii writing in 1927, in "Linguistic Strate€Jies of De-

Om Prakash Jaggi, Medicine in Medieual India (Delht:Ram, 1977), 108. Isiamization", 18.
26
R. C. Majumdar, "Medicine", it A Concise Hktory of Science in India, ed.

*14* *15*
 REFIGURING UNANI TIBB
Introductitttt
in the meanings of unani tibb: its association with its ancient heri-
The kind of understanding of Indian medicine referred to above,
tage in the Mediterranean and'west and central Asia, the relation-
while still persisting, has thankfully given way to broader and more
ship of tibb with its cultural locations in India and the place of tibb
inclusive understandings ofwhat might constitute indigenous rned-
in the global medical rnarketplace.
-I.he hakim's plea also confronts lingering assumptions about the icine in India. There has been some recognition of the interaction
and exchange between unani and avurvedic practitioners and their
meaning of indigenous'medicine in the Indian context. It is fairly respective traditions, and thereby the transformative potential of the
in
rypical t .q,r",. 'lndian'medicine with ayurveda,
as illustrated
presence of the other for both traditions. Some have pointed to
GLy M"r"tt' recent work La Midecine lndietme for the Que sais-je? the complex exchange of pulse learning, for exarnple. Not widely
series, a work which examines ayurveda primarily through the logic
developed in the classical literature ofayurveda, and yet described in
of its classical expositions. This imagining of 'Indian'nredicine reso- depth in the fourteenth-century Sarngadltara Samhita and subse-
nates (even if the author would not wish it) with the idea of India quently taken up as a key diagnostic tool in much ayurvedic litera-
as an essentially Hindu domain and is bound with European
indo-
ture, it has been suggested that tibb could be one of the sources for
logical and orientalist traditions of scholarship on India of the nine-
this knowledge.I Recent work by Zhu Ming and Felix Klein-
te..rth century which elevated the classical Hindu past over the
Franke have added another layer of complexiry to this issue, by
contelnporaneous world of Indian culture. One should point out
showins how Ibn Sinat exposition on the pulse showed imovations,
that it is not just tibb which is eclipsed by such a narrow focus: non- perhaps of Chinese provenance, on Galen's theories.3r Sirnilarly it is
Sanskritic ayurveda, Tamil siddha, the rich veins of religious healing probable that the use of calcined metals and minerals in tibb could
traclitions, informal herbalist and tribal practices can all make equ:rl have had its orieins in ayurvedic practices and therapeutic-alchemi-
claims for attention as rnedical practices of India. The dividing lines cal sicldha traditions, while the use of mercury and sulphur in inter-
betr,veen \.vestern and indigenous become all the rnore obscure nal treatments was attested in Chinese and Perso-Arab alchemical
from the nineteenth century. Political and professional pressures to works, rvith distinctively Indian forms and rneanings in the medi-
conform to biomedical standards and the exigencies of competing eval siddha cults of north India. Mercury becomes increasingly pr-o-
in a pharrnaceutical-industrial cornplex during the twentieth cen- pagated for internal use in ayurveda from the thirteenth century.ls
tury have, to a certain extent, synthesised streams of ayurveda and The incorporation of India's local and regional materia rnedica
tibb with biomedical categories, protocols and pharmaceutical within an expancling unani pharmacopeia is one irnportant area of
modes of procluction. Equally, therapies such as naturopathy and exchange which has drawn attention.36 Numerous unani works
horr.op"thy have become indigenised.rz At one basic level, then' from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries attest to the interest
this book aims to disrupt an interpretation of Indian medicine which of hakinrs in their local environments of practice.
emphasises the alien roots of tibb, which keeps tibb at the margins
of Jiscussions of medicine in India and which does not allow one
to see rnedical practice and related activities as dynamically and 3r
N. P. Rai, S. K. Tirvari, S. D. Upadhya and G. N. Chaturvedi, "The Origin

inextricably linked to their local environments' and Development of Pulse Examination in Medieval lndi.;'", Studies in His-
tory of Medicine 3, no. 2, 1979, 11014.
11
Z. Ming and E Klein-Franke, "Avicenna's Links with Chinese Medicine: A
3r David Arnold an<l Sumit Sarkar, "In Search of Rational Remedies: Flome-
Chapter in the History of Sino-Arabic Relation during the Middle Ages",
opathy in Nineteenth.Century Benga|,,, in Plural Medkine, I}adition and
york: Routledge, Asian Medicine Newslette4December 1998, 2-5.
rvlo,lrinity, 1g00_2000,ed. waltraud Ernst (London, New 35
David Gordon'White,The Alchemical tsody: Siddha Tiaditittns in Medieual India
2OO2),40*57;GaryJ.Hausrnan,"MakingMedicinelndigenous:Homeopa-
(Chicago: The Universiry of Chicago Press, i996).
tlryinSouthlndia;'lsocial HistoryoJMedicinel'5,.,o'2,2002,303-22;Joseph rt' Clatrdia Liebeskind, "unani Medicine of the Subcontinent", in Oriental
s. Alter, Condhi\ Body: sex, Diet, and the Politics of Natittnalknr
(Philadelphia:
Medicine : An lllustrated Cuide to the Asian Arts of Healing, ed.Jan Van Alphen
Universiry of Pennsylvania Press, 2000).
and Anthony Aris (Boston: Shambala, 1997),51.-52.

x16x ,r *
1'7
 Introductittn
RIFIGURING UNANI TIBB
i Atibba-i Haiclarabad (Hyderabadi association of unani physicians)
Many Persian medical works were writteu in lndia which
reveal
in 1935.
the deep influence ofayurveda and local conceptions ofhealth
and
of Muh.a15 Facilitating the textual rransnrission of nrateria medica (although
disease. Hakim Diya Muhammad, the court physician rve should ahvays consider this to be an adjunct to actual practitio-
rrracl bin Tughlaq, composed his Majntu'ah-i Diya'i in 1336'-which
according to nerr-practitioner exchange and not the sole medium), ayurvedic
gives the ,rrlrrt., tf drrrgt and diseases in Hindi' and' *o.i, in Sanskrit were translated into Persian. Indeed, .rany such
iltaf Azr,i, his discussicln of calcination, surgery and astrology-re- works went beyond the domain of rnateria medica to cover general
veal his indebtedness to Sanskrit sourc'es'r7 Hakimllyas
bin Shahab
which tlrernes in ayurveclic therapeutics. ln rhis reeard, t]ne Ma'dan al-Shifi-
wrote Rallat al-lnsatr in 1377 declicated to Sultan Firoz Shah'
i Sikandar Sfialri, composed on the order of Sultan Sikandar Lodhi
inclucled atnulets and talismans' This he justified on account
of
semi- in 1512 by his chief minister Mian Bhowa (with hakims and
popular ideas about clisease causation by dernons ancl other vaids/pultlits as collaborators),l.ras taken on sonewhat of an iconic
beings. A futher work, rvhose popularity is attested
to by its
iirrlrr. st.rtus. It is cited in rnost literatr-rre touching on tibb's pre-colonial
translation into Urdu in the nineteenth century and its publication
l-ristory, as a nrajor Persian work courpiled in India on the basis of
in Kanpur in 1868, was the fourteenth-century Persian work' fib6-i classical Sankrit ayurvedic texts. Alllong those texts on which the
Shahaii,which again reflected the syncretic milieu in which
new
hIa'tlart al-Sltifi was based were the triad of ayurvcdic textual autho-
rvorks of unani. libb *... being composed'3s The farnily of its
ritics, thc sufiuta sarnhita, Caraka saryrhita and vagbhatt;r's Astairya-
atrthor,shahabAbclal-KarirnNagar,vri,hadbeensettledinlndiafor hrilaya, as wcll as Rasa Ratnakara and the fourteenth-ccntury work
in
.pp.oxrrrr,.ly rwo hundred years at the time of its courposition by Sharngeclhara ancl several others.r') Other farlous rvorks dealipe
ti'SS. ap"rt frorn being t".ight by an Afghan physician' Shahab witlr aspects of ayurvedic therapeutics or drugs inclucle the Dastur
Nrg.*'.i also attended yogis (Hindu ascetics) in order to lcrarn ayttr- al-Atibbaa" of Muhamnrad Qasirn Hindu Shah Astrtrabadi, known
rvhich
,r.d"^. In the versified *oik ott pathology and thcrapeutics as Firishtah (d. after 1623), who wrote the well-known history
resulteil frour his experiences, he adopted local names for drugs and
of lndia, Thrtklt-i Firishtah.'we see, then, that it was not only learnerl
some cliseases. He also dealt rvith processes of calcination'
lutkims who r,vere involved in text procluction on nledicitrc, but
The most famous of the pharrnacological works written by .rlso courtiers and officids; a fact which reflects cl1 the status of
The Jawri'
hakirns in Inclia rJrew heavily on Indian nrateria medica' rrreclicinc as a scholarly entcrprise witl1 political dinrensions in prc-
Khan 1'749) consciously developed
al-Jauanti'of Hakirn Alavi (c1' .oionial India.
th-e materia nredica of his illustrious Arab precursor'
Ibn al-Baitar
Tit a rlorc limited cxtent, it scens, wctrks <tn tibb 'n'rrcrc tralslatcd
and was widely recosnised within Indian tibb as having surpassed
()r conlpiled in Sanskrit, slrch ;rs the eighteenth-ccntury Hikmat-
it, and the woik of Hakim Azarn Khan (1813-1902) of Rarnpur,
yrakaia ancl Hikmatparadipa by Mahadevadeva, which draw widcly
Mulit-i 'A'zAnr,reflects a sirnilar scope' In the Deccan' the early-
orr upani theories and ternrinolol5y.rr Tibbi works were als6 corn-
nineteenth-centuly Th4kirah-i Riz.a'lof Muharnmad }\iza Khan of languages in the nincteenth and
enduring 1..rsecl and translate{ in region:rl
Hyderabad was based on local drug knowledge' whose t..rrly trventieth ccnturies. For instance, Hakkinr (as rendered in
book to
importance was underscorecl by the fact that it was the first l.rnril) Muhanrnatu Aptulla Cahipu was active in the production
of Anjuman-
be publishecl, in its original Persian, under the auspices ,,1'nretlical texts-which bear on tibb, ayurveda and siddha-in
in
37
Altaf Ahmed Azmr, "(Jnani Medicine: Hakirns and Their Treatises"' ', M.Z.Siddiqi, strulies in Arabic ond Persian Mcdical Literahre (London: Luzac,
in lndia,ed' B' V Subbarayappa' vol' 4' part
2' of His- ()59).
Medicirr and LiJe Sciences I
Cultwc in lndian^Civilization' ed' D' P' Chatto-
t:ory of science, Plilosophy and Also known x lkhtiyifit-i Qasittrl.
* (N.w Delhi,'centre for Studies in civilizations,2001),329. t i..f . Metrlenbeld, "The Many Faces of Ayurveda", .lournal 'tf tlr Europeatr
.t iorln
fi. f".rqi,,,Tibb-i Shahabi: A Rare Medical Treatise of Tirghlaq period", 11' tt rrtrlit Assttciatittn 4, 1995. 1-9.

Sn,diu in Hiistory qf Medicine antl Science 9,nos 1 and 2' 1985'35-42'

II
x19x
x18x
 lntroduction
RI,FIGURIN(I UNANI T'IBB
Garcia da Orta cannot be seen dispassionate observer; his only
as a
Tamil in the early twentieth century In Telugu a glossary of Hindu- work, the Colloquios dos Simples e Drogas e Cousas Mediginais da India
stani irnd Telugu narnes of drugs, \finani Mulika TLlugu lxlighantu, was written at the end of his career with the intention of shorving
was compiled by Hakirn Hussain Julkarnain (published in I\aya- his knowledge of two worlds: first-hand experience of lndiat medi-
varanr [piese,t-day Andhra Pradesh] in 1931)-a r,vork which bears cinal rvealth and his own knowledge of medicine based on Arabic
tcsrillrony to the interest in crossover lnd exhange of nredical sources. Nevertheless, his remarks should cautioll us that although
knowledge in India's regional languages. Tirus while Arabic, Persian some of the core writings of the unani tradition have been in tnore
and thc.n Urdu were the princip.rl rDedir for thc elaboration of cer- or less continuous circulation atnong elite practitioners in South
tain forms of tibbi knowleclse in the subcontinent, there is uo Asia, ancl have been the source for many later elaborations of tibb,
straightforward correspondence between language ancl medical dis- the authority of the text was not thc sole basis determining horv the
.o.,.r.. This is a point which applies as ilruch to tibb as it does to h:rkim actually practised.
ayr.rrveda, :rbout rvhich, for inst:rnce, lnany tJrdu coprpositions are The qualifiers'unani','lslarni' and'Hindustani' have been gener-
noted in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Hyderabad.+r Further ated by the need to define dre tradition of tibb in relation to other
researcir on regionalisnt in tibb ancl ayurveda will bring tnore clarirv rnedical disciplines. ln their articulation in culturalist terlns they
ro the col]1plex web of lineuistic, cultural, caste and religious dirnen- speak of different understandings of the roots and natLrre of this
sions in the practice of India's medical traditions and their various tradition and its role in sociery. There is no doubt that the rnarking
liter;rtures. of the boundaries of what constitutes knowledge in tibb and the
Although the contours and nature of the exchanges we have representation of this knowledge, although locally inrportant in
pointed to above have not been rigorously explored in relation to pre-moclern times, wcre fundanrental to the formation of profes-
,it t , it is clear th;rt not only have ayurveda and tibb evolved togetl-rer sional identities as a consequence of the changilrg social, political,
as learnecl rneclical traditions over several cerrtLuics, but they have economic and technological dimensions of medical practice in a
coexistecl alongside other methods of healing-overtly religious, colonised, rnodernising India. In this context we are looking then at
magical, alchemicai, astrological and local herbalist. From this per- the birth of tibb as a 'syster.n', the fiaming of which we will ex;rmine
,p.itirr" it becomes problerlatic to describe the unani 'systetrr' of below.
tr-eatrnent rvithout attending to thc inevitability of regional varia-
tions in practice and fluctuations over tiure. 'flte
To illustrate this probleru, we can refer to an instance prescnted in Question of Systenl
'T'he
writings of the sixteenth-century Portuquese p\sician, Grlrcia da long-standing appreciation and study of tibb in the context of
orta. Garciir da orta, rvho settled in (loa, intcracted w,ith practitio- rrn authoritative textual traditiort revolving around a set of well-
ners at the courts of Nizam shahi and Adil Shahi tulers, to rvhorrt krrown texts goes hand in hand with the conception of tibb as a
he attendecl. Da Orta reur:trked on the treatlllcnt of one of Burhan t ohcrent body of knowledge and practice. Special attention is usu-
Nizarn Shah'.s sons, that although the cor-rrt hakims rvere familiar .rlly clrar,vn to Ibn Sina's a/-Qnrrun -fi al-Tibb and its Arabic-Persian-
rvith the fanrous al-Qannn-fi al-Tibb of Ibn Sina, in place of the lat- Llnlu clerivatives.I The enduring nature of this textual tradition
II ter,s cli;rgnosis and prescription they had adopted local practices.rr ('rrcoura€tes a view of the continuiry ofunani tibb. ln late-nineteenth-
r t'ntllr/ India the 'classical' unani medical tradition derived frorn
l2 S.A. Hussain, Vinod Kurnar BhatnagJar and N4omin A1i, "A Brief History of
Ayurveda in Hyderabad", Bulletin ttf Indian Instirurc tf History of Mcdrdne 24' 'r l'hc irnpressive textual iegacy of Ibn Sina in India has been traced in Hakinr
no. 1,1991.63-7 1. Alrtlul Hanreed and Hakim Abdul Bari, "Impact of Ibn Sinat Medical
1r Guy Attervell, "India and the Arabic Learning of thc Renaissance: The Case Wtrrk rn India", Strrdics in History t1f N[edicirc 8, nos. 1 tnd 2, 1981,1*1'2:
of ilarcia da Orta" (M.A. diss., Warburg Institute, U.iversity of London' I rcbcskind. "(Jnani Medicine", 51-52.
1997),28.
x21.x
x20x
 Introcluctittn
REFIGURING UNANI TIBB
characteristics, we may refer to a recently published article
written
Hippocrates ancl Galen-and elaborated in the ninth to thirteenth for a non-specialist by Helen Sheehan' an American
readership
..rrtrrri", in West and Central Asia by such well-kno'nvn figures as social scientist, and S. J. Hussain, a respected authority on tibb
in
Ibn Sina and al-Razi-was only one strand in the authoritative India ancl forrner clirector of the central Research Institute in
strandsofknowledgeirrtibb.Thesealsoincltrdedhealingtraditions unani Metlicine, in Hyderabacl.a'' The usefulness of this article lies

associated with the Greek god of healing Asclepios and

the folk- in their outline of current institutional structures for tibb in India.
lslamic figure of Luqrnan. These latter {igures and the resulting I refer to it here to show a conventional presentation of unani's
f."rrl.wo.k, of authoriry tended to be eclipsed in elite unani dis- systemic qualities. l)rawing on the works tlf Mazhar Shah
and
int91t of some of the funda-
course of the early twentieth century as learned practitioners 1. C. nii.g.t,r7 it clelivers
a stan<lard account
tibb.
on revitalising their traclition elevated the 'classical'writings of ,r"rltrl concepts of health and disease in tibb:
These b...rr* the principal objects of the translation endeavours and
new Uneni tibb, a hurtloral medical systenl, presents causes' explanations'
into Urdu of this time and formed the basis for curricula in the treatments of clisease based on the balance or imbalance of the four
institutions of unani tibb, established frorn the tttrn of the twentieth yellow
hurnortrs (akhlaat) in the body: blood (kftun), mucus (brrlgftrrrr)'
century onw:rrds. It is, however, the forrnative period of Greco- t r" t."frl, and black bile (s,rlria)' These combine with fbur basic quali-
attention' rnoisture (rutubaat)' and dryness
Islarnic literary production that has drawn most scholarly ties iquunat); hcat (ganrrr), cold ('sordi),
e:rch per-
(yat,i'si .. . . Dotninance of one of the humors in the body gives
Convention"lly .,,,.,-'i tibb has been characterised in acaderrric (rri-i,1)-sa,guine (r/rrrrru,r), phleg-
In the South io. hi, o. her individual temperarrenr
and non-speciaiist writings as a 'systetn'of medicine'a5 nt:ttic (httlgluun r), choleric 1s,i1rauq,and nrel:inchohc (saudatlfi ' " '48

Asian coniext the application of the term 'system' to unani tibb

foundcurrencyirrth.l"t.-.,ineteenth-centurydiscourseonindig- Sheehan and Hussain discuss the elaboration of these concepts
in
enous uredicine in India, and has been widely adopted
ever since' the unani rnedical traciition, the principle arena for this being ninth
by
The understanding of tibb as a system of medicine is encouraged to eleventh-centlrry West Asia:
of an
numerous factors that are characteristic of tibb: the existence
AsthesystemdeveiopedinWestAsia/tlreMiddlcEast,thccontributions
authoritative textual traclition; a pervasive hunroral pathology;
a set
of the Persians, Ibn Sina (Avincenna [-rir] 9130-1037 AD)' and
Rhazes
on the pulse, urine and stool exami- AD) to the
of diagnostic techniques based (".-R,,zi, Muhammad ibn Zakariya, 865-923 were central
natiori; treatlnent aimed at the restoration of bodily balance
basecl
systernt develoPment-l')
ontheprincipleofopposites(contrariacontrariis,or,ilajbi-al-didd)
and involving .t rrrb.. of regirnental practices' such as
cr-rpping' The authors cite Manfred lJllmann, an authority on the classical
" o{
of prepa- texts of Perso-Arabic-Islamic sciences, to higtrlight the centraliry
leeching, venesection; as well as a comlnon stock of types al-libb:
and animal sources' such as si'r- the textual tradition, especially Ibn Sina's al-Qannn -fi
rationslerirred from herbal, mineral
an example of the
ups, powders, pills, electuaries and decoctions' As inlndiarightdowntothepresentdayUnanirnedicine,tlratisGreek
..p..r..r,.,ion of unani tibb as a system according to solne of these medicirie transmitted th.oulh Arabic and Persian sources' is
practised

t5 Many works refer to unani tibb as a system withotlt problematislng..the

Features";A'
term, some instances include Biirgel, "secular and Religious
H.Israili,..EducationoflJnaniMedici.'.duringMughalPeriod,',Studi.esitt
and Hakim Ashhar
History of Metlicine 4,no.2,1980,119-35;Jamil Ahmed
qt^Arrr,'tluori: The Science of Crauo-Arabic Medicine (New Delhi: Lustre
Pless, 1998); Neshat quaiser, "Politics, Culture
and Colonialism: Unanit
Colo'
Debate with Doctory '|, in Health, Medicine antl Empire:
Pusputiu.es
.on
nial India, ed. Brswamoy Pati and Mark Harrison
(New Delhi: Orient
Longman, 2001)' 329 -30'
x23x
*22x
 RIFIGURING UNANI TIBB Introduction

alongside ayurvedic and modern European medicine. Here the tradition evolves from deliberate behaviour to enhance health, whether or
. . . was never broken off. The main text-book of this (Jnani rnedicine is not the outcome of particular items of behaviour is ill health"'5a
as always the Canon of Avincenna [-sir], together with other cofimentar- Although this definition allows for change in the system, and it is
ies and elaborations.50
.,...r.rry to appreciate individual agency in the deterrnination of
the nature of the systern, it is unrealistic to predicate the formation
For the authors urnani tibb is "the active representative of a great
of the system solely on behaviour aimed at improving health'
historical tradition".sl In this presentation of tibb we are irrvited to
Agency that gives shape to a medical 'system', whether unani or any
think of tibb of the present day as the seamless continuation of a tra-
other, has to be seen as operating within structures of authority:
dition that began over a thousand years earlier. This way of charac-
social, political and econonric. Thus, the shift that we see in tibb and
terising tibb bears little relation to the historical realities of tibbi
ayurveda in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century India to
knowledge and practice.
what we might call 'remote commercialisation'-through print,
The use <lf the word 'system'in the contexts above consolidates
advertising and mail order services-could be seen as an awareness
the impression of continuity, connoting internal coherence, dis-
of the new conditions for practice afforded by rvidespread use of
creteness, cornpleteness and homogeneity.'System' in its application
print. and the opportunities they offered the practitioner in a conr-
to South Asian rnedical knowledge and practice has, however, been
petitive market.
analysed from theoretical perspectives. Helen Sheehan used the
The tibb that Dunn described is mainly limited to Abbasid West
concept in her study of the roles of ayurvedic and unani practitio-
Asia, which in many rvays bears little relation to the tibb that we
ners in institutional settings in Hyderabad.sr For her, the "explana-
will discuss in this book, which has been of course the product of
tions, institutions, healers and therapies" which each sociery has,
totally different conditions. In tibb at the turn of the tr,ventieth cen-
"constituted a system enabling its rnembers to cope rvith health and
tury there was a strong emphasis on rational internal nredicine
illness".5'1 She used 'system'to enable her to discuss the professional
based on humoral pathology, perhaps even a renewed emphasis on
activities of vaicls (practitioners of ayurveda) and tabtbs (practitioners natural causes; but magical and religious approaches were also
of tibb). She recognised the theoretical validity of adaptiveness in apparent, which Dunn, in common with conventional presenta-
tibb and that in the course oftirne tibb has interacted with ayurveda tions, stated had little place in the unani 'system'. In line with con-
in the Indian environrnent. But the problem suggested by the use of ventional tre.rtrnents of tibb, Dunn identified innovation in tibb as
'system'in these contexts lies with its inabiliry at the same tirne both being principally limited to pharmacology, rnedical education and
to distinguish and also to identify corunon ground betr,veen differ- hospital building. By contrast, the nineteenth and twentieth centu-
ent 'medical systems'operating in similar social milieux. ries present wholly different forrns of innovation in professional
Frederick Dunn, contributing to Asian Medical Systems, the structures, practice and also theory. Tibb was, according to Dunn,
groundbreaking volume on indigenous medicine in Asia edited by principally an urban practice, and he speculated that the clients
Charles Leslie, proposed an understanding of a medical system that ivere ,rainly elite and rnale, even though there is arnple evidence,to
similarly did not exclude adaptiveness. He defined a medical system which he did allude, that prominent practitioners in Baghdad in the
as "the pattern of social institutions and cultural traditions that tenrh century like Muhammad Ibn zakariyya al-Razi, also treated
people frotn various backgrounds and occupatiolls.i5 Patronage was
o
lbid., quoting M. Ulimann
sitv Press, 1978),52.
ir Frederick L. Dunn, "Traditional Asian Medicine and Cosmopolitan Medi-
Ibid.
Helen E. Sheehan, "Using Sociological Concepts in the Study of Indian cine as Adaptive Systems", in Leslie,.4-sian Metlical Sysrenrg 135'
Medical Systems: Medical System, Role and Profession", Bulletin of Indian
ii Cristina Alvarez-Millin, "Graeco-Ronran Case Histories and Their Influ-
Institute oJ History qf Medicine 26, nos. 7 and 2, 1996, 103-1 8. ence on Medieval Islarnic clinicai Accounts", social History of Medicine 1.2
Sheehan, "Using Sociological Concepts", 104. p r6 no. 1. t999- 1.9*13.
A nr on,n - AI
x24x tv x25x
 D
I

Intrttduction
REFIGURING UNANI TIBB
narure of
certainly key institution of tibb, t'ut in lndia by the late nineteenth
a A more useful r'vay of unclerstancling the multifaceted
is provided in the work
and early twentieth centuries the courtly structLlres of unani
patro- tibbi knowleclge and practice in South Asia
who is widely recog-
,"g" h"i been almost entirely dismantled' There is evidence that of the nreciicai anthropologist, Charles Leslie'
a research agenda that has
,r."r, .rrd women of various social standinp; consulted hakirns, and nised as having mappecl oti' i' the 1970s
of and social scientists
tibb was also practised in rural areas.5" w'e are then, in the context inforrned a new seneration of anthropologists
a pluralistic model
early-twentieth-century India, considering,a vastly different'sys- working on nredicine in Asia' Lcslie has outlined
he idcntified various
tenrl of medicine than the one described in Dunn''s study' of irraig"rrous meclicine in India' in whicir
Dunn further subdivided medical systems according to their His categorisation inclu-
ayp.. oirr.aical knowleclge and practice'ss
spheres of influence. Thus tibb, along with ayurverla'
is a 'regional'
cled the tibb of thc classical Arabic
texts' and 'traditional-culture
tibb and
,y*.*, while folk medicine is 'local' and 'western'is cosmopolitan
rnedicine', which elnbraces crossovers in the histories of
is the into
,rra gt"UA. Such a classification is problematic' One problern ,fu.r.a, The latter, Leslie argued' became largely transformed
and unani tibb have practice
notiJn of 'region', since the reach of ayurveda
diffusion of tibb through- ,irr.."ti. 'profbssionalised' drrl s of iniligenous rneclical
degrees' of so
historically blen quite clifferent, with the
which evolved through the incorporation
in varying
out'West Asia and beyond. ln addition, the relationship between .-.ll.d '.or,-t opolitan'(i'e'' orthodox western) medicine in the nine-
there are 'folk' and
regionandlocalityinunanitibbcannotbeaddrelssedwithDunn's
that the teenth ancl tvu'entieth centuries' In addition
clissification. Ot ih. one hand, it is necessary to recognise 'magico-religious'medicines as well as the
'popular culture.medi-
tibbi profession transcends a particular locale, but conversely the
of mass sociery advertis-
tabib' Apart cin"ll whi.h .rrr..g..1 with the institutions
localiry was also of great importarrce for the practising
is highly eclectic and may combine humoral
f.or, tir. 'regional'a.spects oihis practicc-his place in the tradition' -g .ra so forth,.it itt'ttgitit"' and germ theory' Leslie wrote that
theories with vitamin
the acquisitio. of ptt..rt d.ugs fton' outside the locality (often ayurvedic and unani prac-
irr-rport.d frorn other parts of the subcontinent or Central Asia)-
in practice a great *""y ptoft'sionalisc'd
he could derive legitirnacy, also by his place in a particular
c'omn1u- titionerswoulcl.n-,ptoy*"-'"fo"-"of'popularculturemedicine''5"
and miner- 'lhis model is of irnportance for its concern to reflect practice' the
nity and his connections ancl knowledge of local plants clients and consumers'
als.'Thus in Hyderabad, certain unani practitioners of the early rvorlcl of unani tibt' in relation to patients'
of unani practice' as Leslie
rwentieth century were especially praised for their knowledge It dispellecl the notion of any homogeneous
local plants ancl t'heir .orrrp.t.,,.. in Telugu, which enabled them poinied to the n"ralleability of categories'
Charles Lesliei work on pluraliirn in
South Asia has delineated a
io g"i, greater familiariry with local rnedicinal resources's7 The His task-was not to
.oripl.*io., of unani practice could, then, be significantly rnflu- range of possible forrns of medical knowledge'
and he' like Dunn'
..r..d by local conditions. Furthernlore, one could argue that unani provide a rigorous analysis of these categories
tibb has a much wider reach than 'regional'suggests on the basis of was not concerned *ith p'ott'* from
social' political and-economic
its diffusion in the South Asian diaspora and, rnovreover cosmopoli- draw attention to the revivalist ideolo-
f..rp..tirr"., although he did
tanism is fundamental to its history' A parallel, but still more
far-
gies of indigenous medicine in the
early twentieth century' Leslie
reaching, globalisation exists with ayurveda, forms of which have of practice' but he was not concerned
proposed different
entered mainstream European and North American culture
(while 'pht"'
'*iti, ir-rr.rti gatin g the interactions betwe en the' traditio nal-culture
Dunnt article' Fluent Bodies'"
unani has not) in the decades since
,t. prof.rriJ.raliid and the popular'Jean Langford'in in the twentieth
her fascinating i,ttJistiplinary study
of ayurveda
For a.co.,nts of tibb in rural areas of India,see F'Wrlkinson
5(' Report on Plague
j}r"'.1902 (Lahore: Gorzernment
in thc Ptmjah, October 1! 1901 to Septenfier
Ambiguities of Medical Revr-
p."tr, f Sd+);Colonel Thomas Holbein Hendley, Qgyeral Medical Hktory o'f 5* This is especially so in Charles Leslie"'The
lndia", in Leslie' Asian Metlical Systems'35618'
Rajputana (Calcutta: Government of India Press, 1900)' valism in Modern
s7 5'' Ibid.,358-60.
See chapter 3.

x26x x27tr
 Introduction
REFIGURING UNANI TIBB
traditions'
ultimately the boundaries and the interdependence of various herbal
century confronts the "seduction" (her term) and models of well-being and disease'
perspectives on ayu.r. cosmologies and supernatuial
emptiness of 'system' to caPture the varied book does not hinge then on
practitione$'t:tl'l Ivto.f, oith. ,tory that is told in this
veda, and the disjunctu..' i' it' Practice' among and 'purist" 'western' and
pt'blit'uo She quesrions the logic by th. p.rt"tir. dichotomies of 'reformist'
scientists and the consuming ;irrdig.roor', 'modern' and 'traditional'but rather on a politically
*i*f, ayurveda as classical-medicine is thought to op-erate' and
groups of
delineating and Julturally charged dialogue and interaction between
to the moderniry of the-ttlT.'tyt:tT'as a way of the
foirrt different ground' it prr.titlor"rr, their"epistemJogies, practices and ways of seeing
, for- of knowledge' Although this book charts iuch dichotomies as do exist' do
does share ,o*. ofh., .o"tt-"", such as the
reinvention indige-
of -"4a. And as shall be made clear, wish'
the modes by which so only as an ideological imagination, a rhetorical
nous medicine in the twentieth century and
of their traditions' In the Theconceptofunanitibbasa.system,isinfacthistoricallyim-
practitioners constructed the authenticity plicated in the process of the evolution of the unani
profession in
'.orrr"*, tibb, the eminent historian of nineteenth- and twenti-
of discourse of
the wventieth century. 'system'secures its place in
the
also righdy drawn
eth-century Indian Islam, Barbara Metcalf' has indigenous medicine in the context of professional
representa-
The question re-
attention to the inherenr "open[ness]" of tibb'61 tionathrough associations, conferences, the lobbying of
provincial
*rirrr, however, of identifying what the parameters of this
openness
of that century gaining currency
and what is not and why' gorr.rrr*.rr,I,from the first decade
are, what is accommodated and how, its existence reveals the tensions
Ihrorrgh the 1910s and 20s. Indeed,
I., f".t, using the term 'accolrmodation' perhaps misleadirrgly ;td; a professional elite, whose sphere of authority until this time
unproblem-
,";;.; ,rtr, ,r""* forms of knowledge and practice It would be better was rooted in localised, atifid and person"l
contexts' but which
ati:"ally found a place within unani frameworks' g;arrrlty through the late nineteenth century and into the wventi-
the reworking
to rectgnise thai we are in many cases dealing with Eth woke up tJ the need to compete on a more
global
-scale-
of plague' in many
of tnoirteage. Thus, as we see in the context
through print, the mass production of medicines and
professional
germ theory and western- form the
."t* p*.ri l"ners of tibb reformulated authentic and
org"rrlr"tio.r. Arenas in *t'lth these tensions are manifest
derived sanitary principles in their efforts to derive backbone to this book, as we trace the desire among tabibs to reach
the kinds of rela- their rela-
authoritative unani perspectives' Furthermore' orr,, orgrrrir. and reconfigure knowledge' practices and
knowl-
iio*frip, obtaining U.r*t"" learned and popular spheres of tionships with the Vublic,
.Jg. to b. ,J&.,sed'A theme recurring throughout.this-book
"..a
is ih" dirl..tical relationship between elite'
learned unani tibb and
would embracethe Arenas oJ Authority in Contexts of Unani Reform
the multifaceted popular domain' This domain
fractices of those initiates
to the profession who perhaps learnt In view of the above discussion, I shall be moving away
&om the
ifr.i. ,iUU through the flourishit'g of Utdtt print culture' who at intention to develop
used
idea of unani tibb as a 'system', and it is not my
of.those 'system' a useful and
print to disseminate their competence' or the practices a theoretical perspecti;e that would make
tibb: of book is rather to
ih. frirg., of the reinvented, sJcular paradigm of neo-classical
meaningful t.r* io deploy' The purpose this
and other would- ofliUU by examining the forces at
th. iog.rs, religious healers, the 'folk'healers historici"se our understr"a'"g -unani
i. "rt
frrHmr."tn this relationship,we can discern the markings
of unani
pfry ,t gave shape to the profession in early-twentieth-
in other contexts' the blurring of ",
i.rrroty tiai", ttrt a sense of authoriry on the prac-
revivalist ideologies, but also, conferred
time)
titioner, his (it was predominantly a male practice -that
at
diversiry of
60Jean M. Langford, Fluent'fudies: Ayuruedic Remetlies for Posxolonial
Imbalance
k o*l.dg. and his i.".titt' The took-.examines thehighlights
Press, 2002;' ttt especially 14f' the
ip"A"t", D"rrk Uni,etsity
iX'tlo"tli't to healini in learned unani discourse and
61
Barbara D' Metcalf, Muslims in British India: The Case of "pf-r.tt"., Drawing extensively on
1985' 5' nrrlairy of the bound"aries of the profession'
H"k * Ajmal Khan", Modern Asian Stuilies 19' no' 1'

*28x x29x
 lilrodtctitttt
REFIGURING UNANI TIBB
trorrrthat
journals of the It necessitates a cliflcrent understancling of the profi:ssion
what were understood to be learned unani .early in Pctonatn Bala''s stucly of indigenorrs nredicine in Ben-
twentieth century .,ptti'lly in chapters
2 and 6'l show that lively 1rr,rf.r."a
'u.t L p,r, hcr, thc unani and ayurvedic professions are clefined and
dimensions ofhealth and dis-
discussions on the -o'"1 ""d religious found their place within
!*lrri,r.a in tertlrs of their relation to state structures and policy'
witl-i
ease, magical practices and astral-causation
derived from colonial
ih. ,,h.ll..ge to incligenous urcclicine in llala's :rrgunrent-lay
'learned'unani discou"t"' *tli as approaches the western'practitioners who were state ellrpklyees-t']
The exist-
e,rr"p.* medical disciplines' thttt discussions reveal
tensions
enccofvlrriousforttrsofgovcrnlnelltinl]ritishlrrdiaandirrthc
""a if,. process of reforrn in tibb' and the ways that practitioners I)rincely States, their multifacctccl btlreaLlcratic structttres
ancl their
"il.",
were casting their professional identity'
To understand the processes policy agendas clicl rnost ccrtainly influence the fornration
of unani
were constituted in dift-er- ,iUt, * ftlndatnc,tal rvays' ('h:rpters 2,3 and
4 discuss solrlc c()ntexts
by which unani knowledge and practice
tibbi discourse profound irnpact on the pro-
.ir, *ry, this \ook arguef that we need to examine had
in which colonial/state policies a
part\ constiruted in approach to see the rcascln for
from the perspective if authorlty' Authority fession. Nevertheless, I'oonam
is Bala's
and also political on the one hand' bascd on thc clesirc
the social realm, it is informed by social'
economic irr.tif",r.r.,, rtrcclicll rcvivrl as,
for govcrtttrlcrlt rccoqnition ancl the perception of threat trortl
factors'suchastherelxionshipwithrulingbodies/patronsand.cli- ls pr.cltlc:t of 'risirlg ,:rti.'rtl
ents. In addition, it connotes the
relationship berween the practitio- wcster. nreclici.e, ,',r.,i',,,, the other, a
(lroizic'r'
How does the consciottsness', follolving an rrrgulucnt Irracle by Ilalph
ner and the patient and how this is constructed'
to others' what are the ii"", hr,r. ,,.,,rr. f,.,. t1.," irr.,r.-,r,,"nts .lrefilr, ir.r i.cligcr-r.trs,rcdi-
practitioner convey to*ptttt"t in relation
sources of his endeavo"' to legitimise
his practice' and where does .i,,. ,.., el]rergc fi.clrrr tcnsiotls withirr the professitltr..,i Nlrttrrally, the
r'vithin tirer
to lie? e,lergcnce .rln.* professio,al ide'titics rvas oct:urritrg
the patient understand the hakim's competence will ilt thc chrptcrs
the contingent nature and heterogene- col,,nlal worlcl of uiban India,ancl as it be scctr
friirn ,U. aim of revealing <lftlrisboirkt]rerevolr.ttionsinttn:rnitibbintlreninetce-rrth:rrtc]
iry oi tt"tl-r' k ro*l"Jft L'd p'""tit" in their engagements-with
within unani tibb are twentietlrcetrtttricslreinscparlblefrortrtlrcrrrtlltiplestrand.s<lf
the public, I do not 'igt" tf"t practices nrorlerniry which took root in lnclia clurinq the colonial
periotl.
there is not also a ques- ,
.",iray reducible ,o 'oti"'l constructs' that Thisbookargtlestl-rattlrc.llloveluentstorcfbrtlrtibb}rave'tolre
tionoftheeffectivenessofcertainmedicinesprescribedforcertain scenl!ot.,nlyi,thc.ctlnttlxt<lfullanipr:lctitioners,rclationsirip
disorders. Francis Zirrwrctrruttn has
recently levelled a charge along of tl-re
of ayurvedic tonics in rvith colonial iltcclicine, btrt also ill terllls tlf the rclationship
these lines at Lawrence Cohen's discussion practiccs at the
hcreditary clite practitioners with the manifold
study of discourse of the'old The itlpulscs to
Cohen's rich and rnargins of, ancl interscctinc with, learncd tibb'
'ttoogttt-p'o'oking authority rests on his or
Uoay'in India-62 fvideitly p"t of' Jrfim.s rcfortu were qtlcsts to casi professit>nal idcntiry to recclnfigure
or her aid' according to their
her ability to treat ptopt" *f'o seek his tlnanikirowleclge,todcfinetlrelrakirn\roleirrsocictyxlrlong()th-
expertise in
.*p..o,i"", and satisfaction; there are domainstoofdo with their to treat people's ills' The roles of the clients of tibb
in
ers professing
that have He,nce the
orr'"rri prr.tice whici exist for reasons the foruration of the p.oft'*io" necd to be recognised'
of simple and compould,lt"S .,r-tph"ris in tiris book (dealt with primarily in chaptett 2l and 4)
knowledge of the particular effects ].
to
medicd practice in India' with tl're public' in addition
within a broader political economy of is on .rr-rarri tibb :rnd its relationships
oftibb through the prism of inrpacted on the unani profbssion'
Seeking ro.rrra.,,"t'Jtht t'ol"tion ,p..in. colonial policies which
realm' In this way'
oriay"irrevitablltbrings medicine into
a social
"oit historiography of tibb in new directions'
ii. U""[ hopes to tf in
'fit ('+
62lawrence cohen discusses the issue and respon'ls in.NY 'lgilts in lndia:
Ibid.,67.
{,i r1:r 40e R. Croizier, "Medicine ancl Moder,ization in
chi,e and
Modun 7-hin3s @erkeley: universiry of
Frffi)"i'oiner iiti..'i';,
1L
Alzlreimers, the Bad ffi;":;";; *ii* i,riirit,r socittv and l7istorv 12'no'3'1970'275-et'
California Press), 1999,317-18' n' 61'
x31 x
*30:*
 7.-

lntrttcluctiut
REFIGIJRING UNANI TIBB
indigenous tned-
in Madras and Bombay of cloctors who supported
The collapse of courdy patronage for unani tibb in the nineteenth have pointed
i.". tr.irg struck offthe reuisters, asJeffery and Bala for
century-maintained into the early twentieth century in mostly o.rt, l,rrd tire significa,"t oi the idea of ext:lusion
vaids ancl
limited ways in some Princely States, such as Rampur, Gwalior, This book sees the:
hakirns i, .r,,,t x all to be underestinrated'"s
Indore, Bhopal, Mysore and Hyderabad-coupled with social, eco- to gain recognition with thc' gov-
atternpts of unani practitiollers
nornic and technological change, encouraged new professional for- ..rrrrr.rrr and to seek pa''iry with the colonial medical profession as
mations in tibb in which the marketplace and public perception of their profession to
prri .f .larger trend to Ptesent the crcdibiliry
tnany factors
were ofprofound importance for unani practitioners. Indeed, much ih" put-,li.. In practitiontt" e"tlt"uours to this end'
of what this book describes is ultimately about practitioners reach- and hence to thc
contributetl to perceptions of a hakinr'l authority'
ing out to new constituencies and how practitioners sought to trajcctories of refornr.
of thc
establish their competence in the eyes of the public. The need to see i{".",l, insighttul stutlies on the history of tibb at the turn
reform in indigenous medicine in relation to the changing market- of unani dis-
twentieth century rna;r be interpretecl as exploraticlns
place was, in fact, pointed out by RogerJeffery in 1979, where he coutscandt}requestionofauthority.ClaudiaLrebeskirrdhassho'nvn
criticised Charles Leslie and Paul Brass for viewing reform in indig- allegations' cur-
how thrce prorninent hakims variously contested
enous medicing principally as an emulation of colonial western rentalnongsonrewestern-trainecldoctorsanclrnediclladrtrinistra_
medicine,66 but this theme has not been rigourously explored from tors in thc: provincial governmt'nts, that tibb
was.not a scientifrc
a unani perspective.
cliscipline, n the proccss que'stioned scicntific clainrs to unrvcr-
Indeed, one might argue that practitioners' concern with state "rra clefence of tibb' r'vhich she discusses'
,.1 t..rtl-,."' Hakiru Katiruclciin 's
policy, whether in terms of lobbying for governmental support for especially imprortant in the context of the
report of the Conr-
'nvas
medicine
schools and so forth, or lobbying against legislation that was per- ,rritt..j set Lrp to investigate the qualities of indigenous
ceived as a defamation of the profession, like the Medical Registra- in M:rdres in 1925'
rvith a view to gor..,"'"""t stlpport' publishcd
tion Acts of the 1910s, ultimately reflects the practitioners'concern 'Ihe ttnani practitioners'clebatesof this subject wcre certainly cotl-
with the publict perception of them. Chapter 4 of this book dis- of the irrationality
cerned with thc questioll of authoriry' Assertions
cusses the mobilisation among indigenous practitioners that sur- of tibb by sonre cloctors ancl sontc irl the colonial
medical aclrninis-
rounded the passing of the Medical Registration Acts in India's tratiorr ,t..,..k at the heart clf lcarncd trnarri prclfessiorral
integrity.
provinces. I argue that the prime fear of practitioners was that their Also connectecl lvith this theurc is Neshat Qtraiser's
sttrdy of clebatcs
standing in the eyes of the public would suffer because, unlike for dernotrstrated hou'
anlong hakinrs on surgery''-" He has. usefully
western medicine, there was no legal provision at that time for them adoption of lvestern rtrc-
,otrr. i,r-rrrri practitiorreis legitinrised their
to be recognised. Where some historians and cornmentators have a conrrnon
clical clisciplines, in this cascr sursery' by enrphasising Past
interpreted these Acts as delegitimising indigenous medicine,6T it between unani tibb ancl western rnedicine''While surgery and sci-
seems that the passing of the Acts-which were designed to regu- tools by which
entific rnc'thocl were two of the most powerful
late homeopathic and western medical practice and not to delegit- could
ih. pr".,i..i; of colonial and indigenous meclical disciplines of great
imise vaids and hakims as such-may in fact have only had a limited be differentiatecl aud lvere thus sublects of discussi<ln
impact on the daily practice of hakims. There were, however' cases
66
RogerJeffery "Indian Medicine and the Stare" ,Bulletin oJ the British Assoeia-
tion oJ Orientalists 71, 797 9-80, 63.
6i O. PJaggi, "Indigenous Systems of Medicine during British Supremacy in
India", Studies i4 History of Medicine 7, 7977, 320-47, and Zafar Ahmed
Nizami, Hakifi' Ajmal Kftar (New Delhi: Publications Division Govern-
ment of India, 1988), 22.
x33x
x32x
 7-

Introiluction
REFIGURING UNANI TitsB
the debates they describe
In relation to teaching institutions, the arguments proposed in
importance for tabibs in certain contexts' cir- , this book are firstly, that the process of institutionalisation of tibb in
;;;a pir.. only within elite, circumscribed' even if influential' India was not uniform, neither in terms of the motivation to insti-
.o*plt*ents elements of Quaiser's and Liebeskind's
d.t ii;.t new domains' I ana- tutionalise, nor in the nature ofthe teaching institutions themselves.
,*ar.r, Uo, takes the question of authority into Secondly, the new institutions did not necessarily conform to the
institutional realms and'
lyse authoriry in its manifestations in bureaucratic model of an institution outlined above. Thirdly, their
public' all of which gave
Jqp..ir[y, i" ,."1-, that engaged with the emergence did not mean the immediate breaking down of pre-
ffi. ,"'irr. evolution of piofessionalised unani tibb' existing paradigms of authoriry which informed both the patient's
trust in unani tibb and the tabib's confidence in his own practice.
Institutions and Family Practices Because of this disjuncture between the kind of training that a
the emergence of dis- unani institution could deliver and the kind of knowledge and
The period under study in this !ook- tp.1"t. authority that was required for successful practice, the new unani
from the late 1880s and
tinct teaching l.rstltutions for tibb in Inlia teaching institution derived from colonial models occupied an
reform of tibb over the
the consolid^tio., of movtments for the ambiguous and incongruous place in unani tibb during the early
are key markers
subsequent four decSdes' Institutions "t:l-t-::l:tl
attracted some attentron ln twentieth century. Furthermore, this fissure had implications specif-
pr"..tt, and teaching institutions have.
principally two kinds of icdly for the transmission and subsequent practical application of
the literature to date' This book examines
institution: the unani teaching institution
in chapter 3 and a'na- practices at the heart of the learned tibbi tradition, namely urine
4' diagnosis, pulse diagnosis and the preparation of medicines.T3
tional' professional organisation in chapter
medicJ discourse has been emphas- In chapter 3 we investigate unani institurions in Hyderabad in the
Just as the power
oicolonial
so has the professional context of the rise of institutions elsewhere in India. The Hydera-
ised in the studies on Surgery and science,
been seen to impact on the fot- badi experience reveals that the process of institutionalisation need
orgrnir"tlo, of rnestern "itditi"t not be predicated on unani revivalist ideologies, so evident in Delhi
L'eslie has pointed to the
mation of unani institutions' Thus Charles
have modelled them- and Lucknow. Religious nationalism, while most certainly signifi-
i; rh;, professionalised unani and ayurveda to denote cantly impacting on the direction of reform in indigenous medi-
;;k., ";'cosmopolitan' (the term he and Dunn used terms of cine, cannot be seen as a universal feature of the institutionalisation
'western'medicine) medical knowledge and institutions'in
As Barbara Met- process. The institutiondisation of tibb in India was moreover a
colleges, associations, journals and conferences'7'
arrangement: ry".'.fbt: t:il' nrultifaceted and socially and politically contingent enterprise.
calf has noted, the new institutional
emergence of the fUadrasa Tibbiya' a
unani school in Delhi in 1889' In Delhi, for example, it seems that the motivation for the estab-
to replace the infor- lishrnent of the Madrasa Tibbiya and the subsequent agenda to
introduced 'paid staff and fixed iequirements
Such modes of rcform tibb arose rather from professional concerns among elite
mal settings of f,miiy;;;tt and apprenticeship''72
.rg*irr,ii, t".r. Ul* interpretei-as dispensing *itl.the and
tradi- tabibs as part of an endeavour to distinguish elite practices, accom-
plishments and reputations from popular forms of practice. The
tional. dars 1th" s,rdy of texts^ with
a recognised Practitioner)
foll:ll"g boundaries of what constituted tibb were fluid in the early twenti-
irir"a".irg ,.* fo'*' of regular attendance of courses on examlnatlon cth century and a variety of practices may have gone under the
based
,f ..ifi. ..rlri.olr, professional accreditation
paralleled bureau-
th. awarding oid"g"t', " a development that /t'l'his theme is taken up in more detail in Guy Attewell, "The End of
"jrd
cratised colonial medicine' thc Line? The Fracturing of Authoritative Tibbi Knowledge in Twentieth-
(:crrtury lndia", Asian Medicine: Tiailition and Moilernity 1,no.2,2005,387-
7I Leslie, "AmbiguitiEs bf Medicat Revivalism"' 358' 4l().
,, fr4.i.Af,..Natlna[st Muslims in British India",4.

x34x *35*
 Intrttduction
B.EFIGURING UNANI TIB1I
for the regulation of the profcssion, of the public who seenr to have
name'unalli',orthetitles'hakinr'or'tabib''Ispeculate-hcrethat,the wanted free unani mcdication, and potenti:rlly of the practitioners
(atlvertising tabib$ ' wtro had
activities of the 'ishtihan o.tibba' laken of tibb as well, rnarginalised fronr traditionally courtly roles in the
adv:rntage of the expanding use
of print to market their servrces' context of an increasingly visible colonial-based nredical infrastruc-
elite hakims to
;; hJ; provided "' in-'pott"'t i"'ptm for certain ture. The second phase of institutionalisation, was nlore clearly
Efforts to distinguish eiite
give further d.fi,riti.''io thtit p'of""ion' influenced by a revivalist ideology. By introclucing a cornparative
practice werc by no .rea.ns
orrcticc frorrr fork rnd othcr rypes of perspective into the history of institutionalisation, the book is able
:H.,"i';; ,r-,. n.ir-,l ttginn''it''tv wcre,indeed I fcature of thc to show that there was thus not one undifferentiated cause for the
throughout north
late-ninetee,rth-."rto,y iilf i" Hyderabad
and
rcforrn proccss in tibb throughout India.
the book: specifi-
India, anci attention it i'"*" to them
throughout 'fhe institutional arrangements of tibb of the early t\,ventieth cen-
cally in relation to advcrtising hakilns in the context of plague tury rcprcsented a nerv realm of authority in unani culturc. Qualifi-
of astral influence in the satre
i;;p,;. 2), in discussions of theories cations frorn institutions in Delhi, Lucknow, Hycierabad, Lahore
1,,.., c o nc e r n i n g " I
tt' l"
i' t',
: - "-f I 11": l::: : t,1"-::.,1:,":;:,r"'.r;;
lnstantt' [;.?
:11;i.:: ::: :l: and Bhopal wcrc v:rlucd. In Hyderabad a certificate fionr the unani
hvsteria (chapter 5), to give sonle
^
school, or frorn their exarniners, was in rtrost cases esscntial for gol,-
rvhat constitr'rted valid tibbr
ways in rvhich .tnt Uol"atries of with ernlrlent enrploynrent in state-sponsored unani dispensaries. But
knowledge *... Utitg ;' Seenra Alavi has recently engaged ivhilc it rnisht bc presun.red that institutions re:idily transfornred
Hakirn Abd ul-Aziz in
this theme. St't. ,"'i|"s the efforts of unarri culture, I shorv that they did not replace existing fornrs of
frotn those of the 'illiterate'
Lucknow t,, airti'lgoili' "fi" practices .ruthoriry such as transrnission of knowledge through hereditary
recent article, she argued that
hakirns ancT dais.Ta In an illurninarine r'vas centrally l)ractice. Hereditary practicc is still a vital Gature of the lanclscapc of
the niieteenth century {
the reform of tibb J*;g trnani tibb in South Asia today Sheehan and Hussain note that in
founcled on elite *U'Ut to distinguish their knowledge base I
"ttti"g .lhto"gh this inrpulse' 1995, of the 35,350 registered practitioners of tibb in India, 13,116
iibb'
fror.n the various frr*. of p.ir,'t-..r1t.rr. rvere institutional graduates.Tt' Nearly two-thirds then did not havc
engagecl '"vith rvestern nredicine
and I
shc arptes, scholar ftil lr .r background in a unani institution, and the only othcr rucans of
along western lines'''
.rff"a fo, the professionalisatiori of tibb .rcquiring regsitration rrs .r unaru practitioncr is through wlut is
hol'vever' where thc first sovcrnlllent-
The crrse of Hyclerabacl' rllled'enlistnrent'(in place in rnost but not all the states of Indi:r),
in 1891-two years aftr'r the Delhi
funcled .,rr^rri .,.hool ,rp.r"d u.hich indicates apprenticeship. Although one crnnot bc certain
and ten y""t' btfo" the Lucknow
Takmil ut Tibb-presents
school fionr this statistical evidence, it is highly ptobable that a lerge pro-
went through two dlt:1"t'
a clifferent scenario' Here the process l)()rtion of these enlisted practitioners without an institutional
phases. It r,vas rlot a farnily-based'
elite.practitioner enterprlse to
lr.rc'kground wotild h:rve had fanilly connections to the profession.
revive tibb,.ltho.tgh of revival tlid conrc into pl:ry in the
'f" 'fttt" with the seventh Nizanr anci I Icrcditary practice locates the practitioner in a chain of knowledge
second phase of i"ti'*i"" building tlr.rt can be understood as both reliable (through the cumulative ex-
increasing pr:rctitioner mobilisation'
In the first phase there was a
to provide an apparatus l)('rlence rvith meclicinal preparations gained ancl transmitted over
cotrflation of interests, of the governlnent r,,t'rrcrations) and powerlul (through the secrecy that surrounds
in Coloniel Inclia? The Muslrnr Physi- rlre Lruarding of fanrily knowledge). Contextualising these parallel
7] S.en,, Alavi,..A Netional Meclicine
cians ancl tht Colt"gt at I'uckno*'"' http://rwvrv'firs'har-
f"t"'il 'dibb I,n)rs of legitirnisation in Hyderabad balances the ciiscr"rssion of
(accessed 10
vard.edu/-asiatoz"'"tf'1"2""*p"t'p""t'it",'/Text/Seerria'htrn rrrr.uri institutionalisation in the third chapter of thjs book.
C)ctober,2002)'
75 ..U,ani Meclicine in the Ninetee.th-centttry Public.SPhere:
Seern. Alavi, Llistoty '
urdu Texts iklrbrr,,, Tlrc Indiatt Ec()fi()tlic and Sttcial
,rr"'orir, \lrt t'h;in and Hussairr, "Unani Tibb", 130.
"ra 2005, 99-L29'
Ru,ietr' 12.no' i,
x37r*
x36*
 r

Intntductittn
REFIGLIRING UNANI TIBB
lessened the contact
drugs through aclvertisements and mail tlrder
Print, the Dynamic Profession and
the Public
b.t*".r, the" practitioner and the client/patient' This contact'isthc
patient' in
development which underpinned
the p.".trtinr-r".', physicrrl diagnosis and observation of the
Probably the most important with ih"ory ".,.1 tiriiti,,n,il plactice a particularly itnportant par-t
Drocess i"
of reform
^;;' *'; ;;* mgdes of relationship .of
importance'has not
ii;t;;# ;'- ;;i'iii''"a;rint' although its date' rhe ambiguities
hurnoral-basedunanipr".tittsincecliseaseisseenasaresultofthe
uo.rytirnbalanceandcannotbetreatedinisolatiorrfronritsindi_
to
;::Jffi;;;"d'" P"blt'-*io"' 3n tlgu considered to
and twentieth- viclual ernbodirnent. Treatrnent is, therefore, usually
of the impact of p'ini l"tft""ftgy -nineteenth-
in
condition'
Robinson' have to take into accoLlnt the inclividual's constitutional
century lndian r'f'- t'* it""
6'ooght out bv Francis
oi print soecifically for tibb is lnthesenewcontexts,advertisedrrredicinemargirr:rlisest}reartof
and my work on the implicatio"' In li.g"nrir, the proof ancl the syrnbol of the practitioner's
Inastery of
intended to complem#*,
i*"nir o' frf^."'. scholarship.TThow on an act of
UtJ'"ty' Robinson has shown t iriir.iii,re in which reading the pulse can bordcr
soite of the limitatio"t'"f f"* prescriptions' lt
clivination. It dispenses with irldividu:rlly composed
:ffiffi;;;"r,
t#'i:.;;;;""uJ#;'"
't'""g'i 'r" the
h"du"p' of s3u1h
^'11",t:'3of
changes in the transmission shifts the ollus on to the patient/consunler to
know or to fincl ottt
procluct' Conc<lnritantly'
knowledgl that the use of print about their conclition b"ftrr't they use tl.re
Islamic knowledge ';;;";- the practitioner is relnovecl fronl the treattrient
process' and-ceases
about, *hith;t ;o"tt"t""li"
in chapttrs 2' 4' 5 and 6' pat-
brought the primacy ofthe to h:rve direct connection with or iufluence t>ve'r the lifestyle
The accessiblliry of ttre ;;;;tk.challenged just as it ultimately of the disease' W''
iit tt""*ission of tibb
i" tern of the patient, or knor'vleclge of the prounosis
teacher/practitioner interpret
;;;;il g'l'nu'scholar) of his sole authoritv to
ai* rvitnesslrcreanrajorsetoftrarrsfbrur:rtionsinrrre:dicalpracticeirr
obsolete a corrunon traditional
form the relationships of the patient rvith his or irr:r bocly and complaint'
Islamic traditions' ft '"'at"a
which was written on the andwiththepractititlr,"''A'wediscussinrelrrtiontotheplauuein
of accreditat ir"-'h;";;;;;1tt'uet"t4' Ufa"..U.a, clit" lraki,,,s rccognised tire inf'ltrence of aclvertisit-rg
on
,, *ttl as religious) as proof
inside cover.f , rr#;;p,'i-.ai.a But such were thc
as clebased'
a given text to the teacher's
satisfac- the public and decriecl these practices
that the student had masteld of U1c;'1ng of a changing nrarket that re'spected practitioners of hc:rc
the possibiliti3s a pr..rrr",
tion. Print a,'-"it'Uf-i""""'"a pracdce' and ititrry b^.t g.,r.rt .{, b.g.r'-' drugs atrd advertisinil
elite or hereditary
hakim without 'mU"iiot' to the ""t'-prrducing
tirem frotn the latc uinetcenth cclltul-y'
more accessible and more
print made *t"t"''i"aicat tnowtedge
S:tf' lllorc rl flgatttt:e of ttortl't
1920s and 30s, this wls pcrhaps
accommt*"J-i"tt unani dorirains' a point which Until the
easily
while undermining in the tlJ90s in Hyderab'rcl'
t"ttt*l *"* highlights' Inclian turani culture. M;rrly uewspapers
d;"j;;-ir"a the interests
profession, print also served ftlrexanrple,carriedaclvertiscnrentstlfr.tnatriprcrcluctsavailablevi.r
the elite dominance of the
-.-o'Jd procltrcts'
r.rrlrj.l, that the revival
be argued of tibb was or.ler from L:rhor:e, but not cli locally tuanttf:rcturctl
of institution"t
ofjournals and the ,llrissuggeststhatunarricttltureirrthclaterrirretecrrtharrdcarly
'tlail
in part *rd. po"ibt'^til;gi the iroduction in the late nine- ,ru.,rrti.ih ..,tury significa,tly in 6calities that lvcre noIIc-
clifle recl
printing of the a'J'i1t"6 in Urdu
translation
tlrcless considered as centrcs of unani learninq'
i."rrth Ind early twentieth centuries'
for changes in medical ()hapter6o|tlrebookexplorestlretransforlrrativeroleofjour-
Print also f'"a t-t"aous implications in studies on
behaviour.on level' although
a general rr,rlsin unani tibb, an area which has trot beetr explored
pracdces and healttr-seeking on two prt)ll1inent
in particular' The marketing of
unam trlrb to clate. l)iscussion in this chapter focuses
it raised i"'"';;;fu6
".rrt. .rrrtlrespecte<lLahore_baseilunaniSournals'whiclr;rparttiorrrbeing
77 Francis Robinson,
..Islam and the Impact of Print in South Lsia,, , in The .,,,.", .rf learncd unani practice, were also part of :r cotrglorncrate
journals'
Religion' History' and rnarketirlg of unani drugs' Through
Tiansmission { t<t"wiig; ;" iouth Asii: Essays on Education'
(Jniversiry Press' 2001)'
l, rr tlte procluction
anil Politics,.d' Nii"l'Ht;k"ili;;"lht' 6r"'a ,lr'Ir.ttc. ruobilisation antl the
""ht"gt
of ideas anl()nq hakinrs could
62-97.
*iqx
x38rt
 lntrodttction
l REFIGURING UNAN.I TIBB
about l:rn-
perspective of one of its greatest advocates, was as tnuch
Tire 3ournals also it was
be conducted on scales hitherto inconceivable' g.rrg. rrd print in the e{Iort to reach new constituencies as
gave rise to new forms of engagement
with patients ancl the public' and the adopticln of western rnedical
.t o.r, irrr,uutionalisation
Usefullyfortheresearcherintereste.linpatient-oricntedpefspec- practices, such as sursery.
tives on medical practice, the concerns
of patients and how they
clescribed their clisorders are recorded
in question and answer col-
scale which is not available in Crisis and Refornr
umns in many unani journals on a
on unani tibb has used of tibb'
other source ,r",.tizrll No study to date The perception of crisis was a powet{ul force in the reforrn
the practices of
Chapter 2 of this book trcats the impact on thc unani
profession
patient narratives as a way of t""1tttt''-'c1ing 'tibb'
discussed in greater detrril ,.rd i.rpc,rr.s of hakims to the crises in nolth India and Hyderabad
The significance of patient r'arratives are
below. Clhapter O ""i1ot' the variety
of unani discourse which that the plague brought about, from 1tt96 end over the
next Nvo
these journal, prop'gttttl and theit
atlvertising priorities and strate- clecac{es. Ln.p,., 4 examines the development in the 1910s and 20s
on consurlcr culture in of the All Inclia Vedic and Unani Tibbi Conference'*" a national
gi"r,M"rt,r, f1"..1""1'' recent Ph'D' thesis
begins to explo-re parallels
Lahore is the only stucly, to nry knowledge'
which forum for the mobilisation of hakims and vaids' There are
press as a rich of data for the outbreak of
betr.r,'een the emergence of the AIVUTC and
solrrce
nreclical advertising in the LJrclu j.;ur_
in trnrni in the pro-
stlcial history... (|hapter 6 e xantines :t.lvertisetnents plague: both were conne cterJ to the pcrception of crisis
learned unani culture' of authority in tibb'
nals to sce horv they reflect on colnlllercialised Lr.ior, both entaile<l renegotiations
the practitioner.in nerv
Print, then, mediated the authoriry of Plagtreandepiderrricsingeneralhaveattractedrrrtrchscholarly
of new clynanrics of knorvl- pl-,en.rmena thatcast liqht on the relatior.rship between
r'vays, and by factilrteting the enrergencc' attention,
itself a realm tlf authority rvith
"s
rneclicine, the colonial state, and political and social
forrnations in
edge and practicc i" tit'U, bttt"'-t focused on
had to englge' rhe nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Analysis has
*f,i.fr pra.-titio.ters intcnt on the reforrn of their ;rrt elite' circles Sornc studies, such as
The act of using ptit't to transmit knowleclge
beyond colonial nreclical structures and cliscourse.
to the language in rvhich this knorvl- ,ir"r" Uy I.J. Ciatanach have examined indigenous responses'*' Th'
r.vas inextricably connected
,t,r.ty oiplrgue in chaptcr 2 aclds a new dinrensiotr to the
discussion
edgc.rvastobetransnrrtted.Theswitchfroir-rArabic,tlrelarrguage on the dynanrics
tabib' to Urelu' the language of the ..,f pi.g.r. by exarnining the impact of the outbreak
i"i "*.,"tt.,rce of the learnecltibb, represerrts a crtrcial lllonlent in ,rf ih.j.rrr.nl professi.rri- Plague struck at a pivot:rl tirtre
in the refcrrm
new Constitliencies of urrani to it reveal the ernbigu-
the reforrn process. Thc adoptio" ofu'dtr
fot a treatise on plague fro."r, of Ullb, ancl practitroners'responsesbook is partly ab-out the
practitioner of itie, arr.l tensions oi th. pr-ofession' This
by Hakim Ajmal Khan-Delhi's most celebrated definition of 'good' practices in r-rnani discourse' showing the
con-
century-and hrs
tibb and a political activist of the early twentieth a term ng*rr,io,l, of iir. ,"l"tionships of tibb with European' colonial
and
(innovation)'
J.r..rption of his choice of languaee as bid'a fif"fu modes of thought and action' Theworld authoritative place of
reform,as perni-
a
which resonated i,, tht 'gt of tJ"'-'ilt scriptural th. ,rr.rl textual traditi*on, the miasrlatic of plague in the
Barbara Metcalf'7') In
cious act, drew the atteniion of the historirn rvritings of Ibn Sina and other authors of tibb' are thus juxtaposed
that this endeavour was
our discussion of this treatise we can see r"ith n-ew, contingent forms of authoriry.'we see that learned practi-
tlown the elitism of learned
part of Ajmd fn^'l' project to break tioners sought toset offtheir practices frorn the popular realm' and
unani tibb ,, ,...t"iry 6' its sott'i"al'
Reform' therefore' from the
"
't" I{eferences to this organisation wi-ll be as AIVUTC or the
Conference'
r8 Markus B. Daechsel, "'Faith, uniry Discipline',: The Making
of a Socio- "Soi,tt Asian Muslirns and the Plague' 1896-c'1914"' in
(Jniver- "1 len1. Catanach,
Lahori' 1935-53" (Ph'D' diss'' ..IslarrlinHrsto;yandPolitics:ASotrthAsianPerspective,,,specialissue,
Political Fo.*rt,o"l" Urb"" trrdtir'
siw ofLondon' 2001)' .\outh Asid 22, 1999,87-lO7 '
India"' 5'
' nl'.,.rfi.l'rtiationalisr Muslims in Britrsh
x41 x
x40x
 Introduction
REFIGI.'RING UNANI TIBB
Congress Parry as an organisation bringing together Hindus and
the activities of those 'hakims' capitalising on people's desperation
Muslims, could have been motivated by his experiences as a tabib
to find cures. At the same time,learned unani discourse was conver-
sant with and articulated popular dimensions of thought and action,
in Delhi.
such as widely held views on astral traditions that placed human
In chapter 4 of this book we explore the forum for the reform of
lives ar the mercy of celestial bodies, and Islamic (and indeed also tibb which Ajmal Khan set up, the All India Vedic and Unani Tibbi
ayurvedic) traditions on plague framed within the context of the Conference (AIVUTC), at the time that his interests were switch-
collapse ofjust, moral sociery- Equally, authority was seen to reside ing to Congress ideals. This was an influential forurn that had
in colonial-sanitary theory and practice, and later in germ theory' .raiio.ral ambitions, convening in major cities throughout northern
Sanitation for some was a manifestation of modernity and a tool to India as well as Bombay and Hyderabad in the 1910s and 7920s'
further the reform of the proGssion- Moreover, the early years of The ideological orientation of the conference, which was founded
colonial interventionism in the plague allowed practitioners of to serve the interests ofvaids and tabibs, was grounded in indigenous
indigenous medicine to draw on ideas of cultural authority-their practitioner mobilisation against the Medical Registracion Acts.'we
knowledge and respect for the traditions of the country their access find in the debates of the Conference numerous voices on the rela-
to women in pardah (seclusion)-to validate their actions' tionship berween medical pracrice and religious affiliation and ethnic
The colonial experience and the prevailing political conditions background. Rhetorically, the published proceedings provide a
encouraged other notions of authoriry to emerge that emphasised counterpoint to the separatist claims ofmedical practice at the time.
the diffeience berween the indigenous and the foreign. Some hakims We find in the proceedings of the Conference sessions, and in the
and their supporters countered colonial medical initiatives, such as journals which followed their progress, that many vaids and hakirns
inoculation l"a tn. use of allopathic drugs, by drawing loosely on deplored the manner in which ayurveda and unani had been
ecological conceptions in tibb of the symbiotic associations be- pitched against each other, condemned the way that people had
tweeri climate, tlle land, its produce and people, to assert that only .lai-ed knowledge to belong to one tradition and not the other,
Indian medicines were appropriate for Indian bodies. This formula- and lamented that interest groups were being formed along sectar-
tion subsequently becomis a standard argurtent in the deGnce of ian divides across northern India. Within the context of the Con-
tibb. we have here an incipient nationalism, a hint of nativism, akin Grence, some attempted to counteract these developments' What is
to swadeshi (it. 'own country') ideology, which, in the context of of special interest for us in this book is to see how these debates
tibb, nevertheless did not materialise into sustained, organised polit- impacted on the reform process, and here we return to the question
ical agitation against British rule. of authoriry. The chapter argues that the ideological orientation of
whit. it is problematic to see the origins of unani revival as an the ConGrence promoted a vision of tibb which, rather than look-
offshoct of the rise of nationalism, nationalist and communitarian ing solely to the classical traditions of West Asia as its wellspring,
ideologies cu!.rent in the political climate of the,late nineteenth and incorporated unani's bonds with Hindustan as a source for its right-
early rwentieth centuries, they certainly impacted on the course ful plice as a national medicine. In their programme for the reform
thai reform took. The most useful studies on nationalism in the of the profession, they called for new more systematic, cooperative
context of tibb are Barbara Metcalf's studies of Hakim Aj*'l Khan, attention to the desh,the country and her plant wealth. Informed by
who at the beginning of his career was involved with the Muslim a nationalist ideology, and almost certainly seeking to appropriate
League, rvhictr pressed for a separate Muslim electorate and privi- British interest in Indiat medicinal plant riches within a discourse
lege-s for Muslim communities, but later in his life saw that Muslim
iJerests could be safeguarded within the framework of the Indian
National congress.s2 Metcalf speculates that his interest in the Ajmal Khan: Rais of Delhi and Muslim Leader", irt Delhi through the Ages:
issays in (Jrban History, Culture anil Society, ed. R. E. Frykenberg (Delhi:
82
Metcale
,,Nationalist Muslims in British India";Barbara D. Metcalf, "Hakim Oxford University Press, 1986), 299-375.

x42x x43x
 Introdrctittn
RIFIGURING UNANI TIBB
<lther trends in late-
need to re- that colonial-clerivecl ideas coalescecl with
of indigenous rnedicine, practitioners emphasised the Sirnilarly, hakiilrs par-
of national interest' I nineteenth-century Inclia to reform wolllen.
establisir their links with the land as a matter ptrbli.'' health of the
trace the resonance of these ideas in unani
journal literature of the iirlly.dopt.tl the.liscourse on sanitation and
with pre-
colonial meclical administration, blencling it
on occasiclns
1930s, where there is a nlore explicit expression
of the need to lib- the home
to reform
'foreign' medicines- by scriptions on hygiene ln Islam, as they sought
..r,. ,h. lndian body frorn the yoke of environment. The stucly of the incorporation of colonial sanitary
plants and-to
encouraging hakims to actively engage with Indiat uedicine complemcnts
and the public' theory :rnc1 practice within indigenous
share thlrr experiences with other practitioners in British India and i[rpe-
the contradictions that this vision ,t.rtlie, on the evolution of public health
Without wishing to gloss over fused rvith
*irhing to banish western drugs' but at the same .iri p*."gr,ives.s1 The dissemination of sanitary icleas
cntailed, ,r.h of unani iitera-
". ,".rtJ,n methods of analysis and establishinp; ,".rli p..i.pts was also articulated outsicle the reahninfluence in the
tinre introd.r.irg w'hose
an endeavour tc> ture. Thus Shah Jahan Begunr of Bhopal'
laboratories to ,rr"lyre Inciia's drr-rgs, it lvas in spirit th" trn'entieth centtlry has recently
'decolonisc the bodY'. lvometr's rnovements of early
beenclelrronstrateclintlre'nvorkofsioblrinLarrlbert-Htlrley,Si
wrotenunlcroustreatisesrvhichsp<lketc.ltlreliterateferrralccliteon
Authority: Wonten, Men and the llome The exanrples of the
lntinrate Spheres af principles of hotne lllanallerlreni ancl health'
reworkingoftheconccptofsanitationirrthesecontextss}ro'"vtlrat
The place of women in tibb, cither as prrctitioncrs or
patients'
clrew on ideas fi-ofir
entirely absent in certain practitioners ani refornrists innovativelv
irrrpo.tr.,t though it is. is a srrbject which is almost
century anunrberofdorrrains-.scientific',tibbilrndspirittral-ilrtlreir
the historiog."pl-ry on dbb to date' Before the t'uventieth
practitioners' as.Zillur- attemPt to fashion a new culture'
therc: are occrsional references to women as
H' have pointed out'sr What Witlrinr-rnanispherestheinrpactclfthernoverrrentsforwotrten,s
rahnran, R. L. Vernla and N' Kesr'vani the journals rvhich
the relative abserlce of wornen education in the early tlventi"th t"'-ttttty' and
is clear is that lve should not equate could also adl'er-
reality' There supportetl thenl, meant that fernale practitioncrs
prai:titioners in the historiograpl-'y of tibb to date with
practitioners of tisetheirservicestoaferrraleclientele.Thisrepresentsanerv.and
is no reason to supPose that there \'vere not fernale tibb r'vhich
nobrliry or i-p,,rt.rrt development in the transformat:ion of unani
tibb rvho served the zcnanas (rvonren's quarters) of the It precedesthe. devel-
in the has not been recosnisecl in the historiography.
r,vho practiseci atlrong the general population specialising that tooi place later in the t,nventicth centurynvhich saw I
practising birth
treatment of ,"o-.rr'I .o'lditit""' alongside dais as
"prr*rr,.
however' nerv forms of tretr-ren<lousincreaseinworrrc.nsttrtlentsirrunaniinstitutiolrs,asis
ln the ear\ twentieth century fernale students in the
attendants.
wonren thetnselves .:.rr..rrrty reflected in the large nunrber of
engagentent with women in tibb eln-erged' and
tibb' as the profes- NizarrriaTibbiCollegeirrHyderabadarrdtheHarrrc]ard,s(lollegc
g.i".rJa a rnore prominent role in professionalised
of Eastern Medicine in K:rrachi'
,ion irrto new' dornains of practice' part of the globahsing in tibb' thcre rvere
"*p"r.l"d In the nelv forms of engagelll.ellt with wornen
t.rj..tory that tibb assumed in this period' Chapter 5 of the book other spheres of authoriiy"i" op"t.rtion than the emulation ancl
.*"rri.t.s these trends in relation to the treatment of women'
Ajrnal
Models of western rnidwifery evidently inspired Hakim *r Mark Hrrrison. Pul,lk Htalth in British lntlia: Att.qlo-lttdian Prctc-ntirc Alcdkittt'
tr9{)l Devid Arnold'
Khan's Madrasa ZenanaTibbiya, inaugurated in Delhi
in 1909 for 1 8.5 % t 9 t 4 1cr,,',b'idit'
Canrbridge Universrry ntt"' 1

Epidttnir Disease in Nineteenth-Century

the training of women tabibs ancl dais' But this chapter Cokrnizitrg tlr,, Bu,ty' Stit' tr[edkitrt ind
shorvs
of California Press' 1993)
frai, 6.ii.t"y: Llniversity
*- siobhirr Larnbert-Hurley, "Contesting Seclusion: The Poiiticd Eurergence
*3HakimsayyidZiliurrahnran,Dilhlaurlibb.iYfinanl(Dilhi:UrdLlAkadenu, (Ph'D' diss'' Univcrsiry of Lon-
Arab Medi- of Muslim Women i" ei'"p'f, 1901-i930"
1995), 43-44;R. L. V.nna and N' H' Keswani' "Women in the
no' 4' don, 1998)-
cine'i, Sl,r,/ie, in llistory of Metliine 1' 7977
'280'

x44x x45x
 Intrtttluctittn
REFIGURING UNANI TIBB
Anxiety coucernins sexualiry in the late nineteenth ancl early
accornntodation of western discourses on midwiferyi
sanit:rtion'
on the recent excellent twentieth centuries was, hou'ever, ttot uender specific' It was not
home manaliement and nursing' Drawing only women's boclies and sexuality that had to be colltfolled. The
Islamic culture by Gail
work on *.irrr.rr, reforln and South Asian cprestion of the overlapping of moraliry medicine and socicty
Minault,s('BarbaraMetcalf,srFrancisRobinsonssanclFaisalDevjis''
surfaces :rqain in thr: context of rnale sexttal practices' Thc patient-
others, this chapter argues that one of the reasons
rvhy
;;; of tire orientecl intertrctions in the question atld answer colunlns of the
*orrr.-, receivecl atterrtitn in the reform of tibb is because
journals, in chapter 6, rcveal ln overridinu popular concern wlth
century that
current alllong lslamic reforrners of the late nineteenth "rh"
conduct as e\ssex- ir,,rp.., of ntalc scxu:rl prlrcticcs on bodily ancl nrental health,
saw women, tf,eir educ:rtion, their piety and good
unani tibb and the authoriry in rvhich hakints were held to cleal with these
tial for the survival of lslarnic: c'ltt're' An exposition of .rlisoriiers'. The rtrapifold efTects of 'perverse' male serttal prlcti-
of
f,rr,r" p.r, of clne of the nrost popular guidcs for the conduct
activity-()n
Zeuar of c es-ll ttstu rb:rti on, i]ornosexu al lcts, excessive sexual
Muslirir $,omen of the twenti;th century, rhe Bihishti
.nvritten lvork of the the rtrale bocly and urind can be captured in the utnbrella tertlr
Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanavi. Like no other
knorvledge, rvell as irealing traditions kartr:t,ri,a no1-gelcler specific general weakness of the body-1rind,
titile, ir toclk learnecl unani as

basccl on prayer, t() women in an ctfoi't to rid them of 'superstitious' rvhich ,va, nerr.irthelcss often conceivecl in relation to malc sexual-
('tlstol'l l. iry. Marktis Daechsel has recently pointed to nrenk tlbsessicln with
Thc neecl to control ancl refomr w()lllen is replic:rted in the
inter- wcakn css in pi cl-trvetrtieth-c entu ry Lrrho rc society ancl sp cctllatecl
r

est :rnlonq hakills in lrysteria, irr their. irrterpretations ancl reinter_ wl]ether the conccrn rvith rpalc lveakness r'vas sonrcthing particular
pret:rtions of this resclnant'fetnale malady''
(loncern with hysteria to Lrrhore's society or :l lIlore widespreacl phenotilentln at this
'h.,,ln,,gtraclitioninW.estAsianandEuropeanrrredicirretha^t,can titne.'){' Hc locatecl this cliscclurse in the ccot-rotuic rncl stlcial hercl-
b. t...,.d t.ck to the Hippocratic corpus' Exemplary studies of h1s- ships in Lahore's changing p:rttcrns of lifestyle'
teria spannins ancient Greek me'dicine, the Middle Ages'
Renais- Thc stucly in ciraptcr (r of unirni jotrrnal literattlre spelks of a
no
..r.,.. ..t.1 ttp1o th" tr,ventieth cclltury have been prclcluced-but broaclcr concern tluonq rncu in lDclil rrt the tinrc u'ith u'eakness.
tibb in
,t.r.ly on hysteri" I'urs until now been done ir-r the context of I)rectitiorrcr-s nraclc thc reftrrtrt tlf rltalc scxttal practiccs a ctlnCern of
on hysteria' thc
lnclia. In sollle twcntieth-century unaui writings theirs. Such rvas the pronritrcrlcc of this conccrll th:rt it is rcflc-ctell
to un-
rrlso in thc clcbatcs of thc nltion;rl forr,tttt tor r.ln:rni tibb, the
eclucated, urban rvotnan was seell to be especially
susceptible
nlight corrupt her body. It is evi-
controllable carnal desires rvhich AIVUTC. Itr thc cottstrltctiott of this tlisctlurse of n'eaktlcss of thc
dent that clne of the means by which lvoruen's reproductive-roles rtrrrle boclv ancl tnirrcl, ancl its presltntecl tlrigins in rttale scxttal cotr-
sociery lay in
I
coulcl be controlled ilt early-tlventieth-century Indian cluct, therc tvere rartrifications at :r socictal lcvci lnd thc health of
conditions'
the hakims'authorify to treat hysteria aud other women'"s sr_tbsccluent gcnerrltiolls. Froilr the rescarch for this stucly it becorlrcs
clear tir;rt the hakint\ authority to dc.rl r,vith trrale scxtt:rl
'disorders'
s,,
Gail Minault, Scdriled Srlro/ar-s; lVLrr'trcn's Eduratiott iltd Mrrslinr S"ri'r/ Rrli'nrr
u,es ntutlr:rlly constittttcd tlrroush the actions of both the practitio-
itt ( ^,l,,trial firrli,r (Nes -Dclhi: Oxfbrd Ulriversitv Prcss'-1')9'))- fornration or con-
s7
Barbara D. Metcalf.,,Mar.rlana Ashraf A-li Thanavi
.rnd Urdu l-rterrture ' 1n ners ancl thc public, and the cluptcr cliscusses t].re
(irrlrr artd Muslitu SLtuth Asia: Stutlics in Hott()ur qi Rolph Rrrssell' t1
tinuation of a spccralistrr in un:rni tibb dealing with issr.res of male
-91::i::t-
ifr".fa. of Oriental and Africen Studie:' 19139)' 93- the prorni-
fn.. (London: School sexurrlity ancl perceprions of ill health. The str-rdy reveals
I00;BarbaraD.Metcalf,tr:lns',Pe$'ectirtgLVonrcn:MaulandAshrr!'AliTha-
Press' 1990)' nence of an ethical cliscoursc within discussions of the body in early-
n,ur,,i\ Bihisltti Zctrar (Betkeley: t-Iniversity of Calitbrnia
EB
Francis Robinson, lrlou, oni Muslinr Histoty itt South
Asid (New Delhi: trvetrtieth-r:entury tibb. It shorvs how many tabibs slr'v it as their'
Oxford UniversitY Press' 2000)' role to rcach out to the public rvith their rnsights into uroraliry and
nr u-*, Deqi, ,.Gender and tLe Politics of Space: The Movement(New' _for
'Wornent Reform, 1857-1900", in Forgitrg ltlentities' ed' Zoyt Hasan '"' f)aechsel. "'Faith, Uniry rnd Discipline"', 100'
Delhi: Kali, 1994),22-37 '
x47x
x.16x
 Intrttduction
R,EFI(]URING UNANI TIRI]
fbtrrteenth-century abridgement of the Ibn Sina'.s al-QAnun,by Ibn
the body and the intc'rtr'vined fate of the individual and the collec-
al-Nafi$;the Urdu translation of Muhanrmad Akbar Arzani'.s Per-
tivity. By developine this therne of fcrrnrs of control of male and
sian hillzan al- Tibb (c. 1700) and the Sharh al-Asbnb of Nafis ibn
fernale sexualiry in indigenous niedicinc, this study rs contributing
'lwad (fifteenth cenrury).I have made extensive use of a number of
to an emersing body of literature on sexualiry in colonial Inclia, as
other nredical writings: tracts on plague and hysteria, a published
outlined by Patricia Uberoi in a recent edited volurne.''r
collection of case notes, wotks on preventive health, sanitation and
wor.nen'.s diseases. The printed proceedings of the All India Veclic
Sources and Unani Tibbi Conference represent anclther interesting solrrce
The range of issttes explored in this book is reflected in the variet.v that has scarcely featured in any studies to date, ancl forms the basis
of sources that have bec'n used. The greater p:rrt of uly sources h:rs for chapter 4. Where original newspapers have been absent, I have
been prirrte.l works in Urdu. Sorrre oFtttl'tttost prolttinetrt s()tlrL'cs used the Selections frotr the Vernacular Press, in the records section
are unani journals published bet'"veen 1911 and 1935. Ra.fiq al' of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections at the British Library.
A.tibba and dl-Haktm, both publishecl in Lahore, becamc established These have been especially useful for the chapters 2 and 4,on pla-
voices of learned unani dis<:ourse. The editorials reported lvrdcly gue and desi tibb.
on political dimensions of tibb, and in each isstte there are articles Archival material in Urdu and English from thc Andhra Praclesh
on theory and practi<;e. letters frorn practitioners ancl the public, ancl State Archives is drawn upon for chapter 3 on tibb in Hydcrabad. ln
question and answer sections, pror.iding valuable insiqhts into inter- this particular study, another major source is the tazkirah literature
actions of pr;rctitioners rvith the public. The analysis of thesc jour- of the early twentieth century r,vhich is a fascinating but again little
nirls is cornpienrentcd by referencc to al-L{ttslh fronr l)elhi, and a/- utilised sollrce for exploring how hakinrs presented thernselves; the
Mu'alii and \Takinri Dckkan from Hyderabacl. Although trernen- clualities ofhakims which were valued, their lives and their teachers.
dously rich, unani journals have not beell extensively used in studies Most of the research for this book r,vas conducted in Hyderabad
on tibb to date. C)ther UrcLr journals th;rt I have cclnsultecl are the and l)elhi, drawing on nraterial available in archives, public libraries,
wonrenl jottrnals,.r\,{u'allint-i Nlrsuarl, Klntun and 'Isrnat,rvhich Giril private collections, in rnany cases nradc accessible through the gen-
Minault so pcrceptively exanrineci as part of her study Scr/rrdcrl erosity of interested individuals, and frorn seconcl-hand book stalls.
Stholars" M:rtcrial fi'onr these journals fecl into the chapter olt treat- The Urclu and Arabic nraterial presented here is translated into
ins \\roll1r.n, chapter 5. As illustratecl by the discussic'rrt of the advert English for the lirst tinrc, except whcre othcnvise indicrrted, ancl
placed by a fenrale tabrba in 'lsrrraf, using these journals providcs I take full responsibility for the accuracy of the translated sections.
inrportant new insights into the role of women in tibb.
I
The sources for the book also span a rvide range of parnphlets
and treatises of unani tibb in Arabic aird {Jrdu, as wcll as other liter-
ature relating to unclerstandings of health and disease, tnost of
whicir was published frorn the late nineteenth century onrvards.
These include sorne of the core texts of classical tibb, such as Ibrr
Sina's a/- Qar run.fi-al-Tibb in Arabic, and the lJrclu translation of one
of its rrrost comrnonly referred to abridgenrcnts, al-Nluja.: (rhe

"l Patrrcia Uberoi. "lntroduction: Problern:rtizing Social Refonn, Engaging

InterrosatingtheState",in SodalR$trm,SexualityandthtStatc,ed.
Sexr.rality,
Patricia Uberoi, Contribr.rtions to Indi:rn Sociology, Occasional Studres 7
(Ner,v Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996), Lx-rxvi.

x48x x49x