‘Ali ibn Sahl Rabban at-Tabari’s Health Regimen or Book of the Pearl: Arabic Text, English Translation, Introduction and Indices

The Arabic treatise edited and translated here was written in the middle of the 9th century CE by ‘Ali ibn Sahl Rabban at-Tabari, a Christian convert to Islam and one of the most remarkable thinkers of his time. The text can be described as a manual towards the preservation of health, addressed directly to the 'Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil and his household. It represents not only the oldest extant specimen of its kind, but is also distinguished by its largely non-technical language, as well as by a narrative style that creates an unusual interface with classical Arabic prose literature. The Greek and Indian sources upon which at-Tabari relied testify to the synthetic and inclusive character of early Islamic medicine.