gondishapur - wiki

Location of Gundeshapur in Iran

GundeshapurFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gundeshapur (Persian Persian: گندیشاپور, Gund-ī Shāh Pūr ,Gondeshapur, Jondishapoor, Jondishapur, and Jondishapour,Gundishapur, Gondêšâpur, Jund-e Shapur, Jundê-Shâpûr,etc. (means Army of Shapour), Pahlavi Weh-Andiôk-

Šâbuhr[citation needed], Classical Syriac: ܠܦܬܠܦܬܠܦܬܠܦܬ ܒܝܬܒܝܬܒܝܬܒܝܬ Beth Lapat andGreek Bendosabora) was the intellectual center of the Sassanidempire and the home of the Academy of Gundishapur.

Founded in 271 CE by the Sassanid king Shapur I, Gundeshapurwas home to a teaching hospital, and also comprised a library andan centre of higher learning. It has been identified with extensiveruins south of Shahabad, a village 14 km south-east of Dezful, tothe road for Shush, in the present-day province of Khuzestan,southwest Iran. It is not an organised archeological place as oftoday, and except of the ruins it is full of remainings like broken ceramics.

Gundeshapur or Jondi Shapour, was a renowned academy of learning in the city of Jondi Shapour during lateantiquity, the intellectual center of the Sassanid Empire. It was called the Cradle of Medicine, Astronomyand Mathematics and the most similar comparison to today's modern Universities. It has been a center forteaching scientists for centuries. Iranian, Greek, Indian, and Roman scientists conducted studies andscientific research there. The faculty was versed not only in the Zoroastrian and Persian traditions, but inGreek and Indian learning as well. According to The Cambridge History of Iran, it was the most importantmedical center of the ancient world during the 6th and 7th centuries. Will Durant has lauded the Iraniancivilization for having built such an academy. Einstein has praised his disciple, Professor Hesaby, for having

belonged to a country where an academy had been built 1,700 years ago.[1]

In the Achaemenid era, there were numerous physicians in Iran (Persia) whose knowledge was used byGreek scientists, as well as those from many other nations. An important part of medical knowledge in thatage and even in the Median period before it and the periods after, was based on the Avestan sciences.During the Sassanian era, scientists from various countries, one of whom was Diogenes, studied different

fields, including medicine, at the academy in Gondi Shapur.[2]

Despite the fame, recently, some scholars have called Gundeshapur's overall historical importance,

specifically, the existence of its hospital, into question.[3]

Contents

1 The Rise of Gundeshapur2 Gundeshapur under Muslim rule3 The destruction of Gundeshapur university4 Recent academic doubts5 Notes6 Sources7 See also

The Rise of Gundeshapur

Coordinates: 32°17′N 48°31′E

Gundeshapur - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundeshapur

1 of 4 17/03/2013 3:06 PM

Gundeshapur was one of the major cities in Khuzestan province of the Persian empire. The nameGundeshapur (Pahlavi Gund-ī Shāpūr) comes from the compound term Gund-ī Shāpur "Army of Shapur".Gundeshapur's administrative district included the neighboring towns of Susa and Mihrijanqadaq, the latter

which was actually in a different province.[4] Most scholars believe Shāpur I, son of Ardeshir (Artaxexes), tohave founded the city after defeating a Roman army led by Emperor Valerian. Gundeshapur was a garrisontown and housed many Roman prisoners of war.

Shāpur I made Gundeshapur his capital. Shāpur's wife, the daughter of Aurelian, lived in the capital withhim. She brought with her two Greek physicians who settled in the city and taught Hippocratic medicine.

Shāpur also encouraged scholars from Persia and India to settle in his capital.[5]

In 489, the Nestorian theological and scientific center in Edessa was ordered closed by the Byzantine

emperor Zeno, and transferred itself to become the School of Nisibis[6] or Nisibīn, then under Persian rulewith its secular faculties at Gundeshapur, Khuzestan. Here, scholars, together with Pagan philosophersbanished from Athens by Justinian in 529, carried out important research in medicine, astronomy, and

mathematics".[7]

It was under the rule of the Sassanid monarch Khusraw I (531-579 CE), called Anushiravan "The Immortal"and known to the Greeks and Romans as Chosroes, that Gundeshapur became known for medicine anderudition. Khusraw I gave refuge to various Greek philosophers, Nestorian Assyrians fleeing religiouspersecution by the Byzantine empire.

The king commissioned the refugees to translate Greek and Syriac texts into Pahlavi. They translated variousworks on medicine, astronomy, astrology, philosophy, and useful crafts.

Anushiravan also turned towards the east, and sent the famous physician Borzouye to invite Indian andChinese scholars to Gundeshapur. These visitors translated Indian texts on astronomy, astrology,mathematics and medicine and Chinese texts on herbal medicine and religion. Borzouye is said to havehimself translated the Pañcatantra from Sanskrit into Persian as Kelile væ Demne.

Many Syriacs settled in Gundeshapur during the Fifth century. The Syriacs were most of all medical doctors

from Urfa, which was during that time, home to the leading medical center.[8] Teaching in the Academy was

done in Syriac until the city fell to Muslim Arab armies.[9]

Gundeshapur under Muslim rule

The Sassanid dynasty fell to Muslim Arab armies in 638 CE. The academy survived the change of rulers andpersisted for several centuries as a Muslim institute of higher learning. It was later rivalled by an instituteestablished at the Abbasid capital of Baghdad. In 832 CE, Caliph al-Ma'mūn founded the famous Baytul-Hikma, the House of Wisdom. There the methods of Gundeshapur were emulated; indeed, the House ofWisdom was staffed with graduates of the older Academy of Gundeshapur. It is believed that the House ofWisdom was disbanded under Al-Mutawakkil, Al-Ma'mūn's successor. However, by that time theintellectual center of the Abbasid Caliphate had definitively shifted to Baghdad, as henceforth there are fewreferences in contemporary literature to universities or hospitals at Gundeshapur.

Gundeshapur, in this time, became a major link between Iranian and Greek medicine, because of its previouspractices of combining the Greek, Indian, and Iranian medical traditions. Gundeshapur was a site where thetraditions of Galen and Hippocrates had been preserved, therefore the transition from ancient to Islamic

tradition was more coherent.[10] This combination "foreshadowed the synthesis that was to be achieved in

later Islamic medicine."[11]

The destruction of Gundeshapur university


2 of 4 17/03/2013 3:06 PM

After the Arab conquest of Persia (Iran) 646 A.D. When the Arab commander Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas facedthe huge Iranian library of Ctesiphon (Sassanian Capital City) at the time, he wrote to Umar: What should be

done about the books,[citation needed] Umar replied that the “blasphemous” books are not needed, as for us

only Quran is sufficient.[citation needed] Thus, the huge library was destroyed and the books and the productof the generations of Persian scientists and scholars were burned in fire or thrown into the Euphrates. Laterby the order of another Arab ruler (Gharaibeh ibn-e Muslim) in Khwarezmia, the literate Persians who were

historians, writers and Mobads were massacred[citation needed] and their books burned[citation needed] so thatafter one generation the people were illiterate. Other libraries in Rey and Khorasan Province received thesame treatment and the famous international University of Gundeshapur declined and was eventuallyabandoned, its library and books vanished and burned. Only few books survived because the Persianscholars were left with no choice but to quickly translated them into Arabic in order to save

them.[citation needed][citation needed]

Recent academic doubts

Some scholars have cast doubts on the existence of the hospital at Gundeshapur by claiming that there areno known surviving Persian sources "that would corroborate the claims that [Gundeshapur] played a crucial

role in medical history".[12] It has been assumed that a medical center at Gundeshapur would haveresembled the School of Nisibis. What is more likely is there existed a seminary, like the one in Nisibis,

where medical texts were read, and an infirmary, where Galenic medicine was practiced.[13]

Additionally, Gundeshapur's reputation may have been conflated with that of Susa, a city to the west ofGundeshapur and with which Gundesahur was administratively linked. Ath-Tha 'ālibi, a scholar with accessto Sassanian royal annals, says of pre-Islamic Persia: Thus, the people of [Susa] became the most skilled inmedicine of the people of Ahwāz and Fārs because of their learning from the Indian doctor [who wasbrought to Susa by Shāhpur 1] and from the Greek prisoners who lied close to them; then [the medical

knowledge] was handed down from generation to generation.[14] In the other hand, the same source mightbe another confirmation of the medical reputation of Gundeshapur as Susa may represent the whole localregion which included Gundeshapur (as they were administratively linked). This is enforced by the fact thatAhwāz and Fārs, mentioned in the quote for comparison to Susa, were regions as well, an indication thatregions were being compared.

Notes

^ http://www.tehrantimes.com/PDF/10749/10749-7.pdf1.^ http://www.iranchamber.com/culture/articles/medical_sciences_avesta.php2.^ Dols, Michael (1987). "The Origins of the Islamic Hospital: Myth and Reality". Bulletin of the History ofMedicine 61: 367–91.

3.

^ Richard Frye, The Golden Age of Persia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975), 10-11.4.^ Dols, 367-368.5.^ University of Tehran Overview/Historical Events (http://www.ut.ac.ir/en/main-links/historical.htm)6.^ Donald Hill, Islamic Science and Engineering. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993), 4.7.^ http://rnb.uin.googlepages.com/v22n2spring2005.pdf8.^ R. Frye, ed., Cambridge History of Iran, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), vol. 4, 397.9.^ Frye, Cambridge History of Iran, 388-89.10.^ Ibid., 414.11.^ Dols, 369.12.^ Ibid., 377.13.^ Ibid., 378.14.

Sources


3 of 4 17/03/2013 3:06 PM

Dols, Michael W. (1987). "The Origins of the Islamic Hospital: Myth and Reality". Bulletin of theHistory of Medicine 61: 367–91.Elgood, Cyril. A Medical History of Persia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951.Frye, Richard Nelson. The Golden Age of Persia. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975.Frye, Richard Nelson, ed. The Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1975.Hau, Friedrun R. (1979). "Gondeschapur: eine Medizinschule aus dem 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr".Gesnerus XXXVI : 98–115.Piyrnia, Mansoureh. Salar Zanana Iran. Maryland: Mehran Iran Publishing, 1995.Hill, Donald. Islamic Science and Engineering. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993.

See also

Science in PersiaList of hospitals in IranSchool of NisibisSarouyeh

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gundeshapur&oldid=540425294"Categories: 271 establishmentsPopulated places established in the 3rd centuryFormer populated places in Khuzestan ProvincePersian words and phrases

This page was last modified on 26 February 2013 at 00:47.Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms mayapply. See Terms of Use for details.Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.


4 of 4 17/03/2013 3:06 PM

gondishapur - wiki

Documents