The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice (70 page)

Mirdin forgot his own nervousness, and smiled. “You are ready. You’ve been a barber-surgeon and all who have taught you have come to know what you are. We have two weeks to study together, and then we shall have our examination.”

55

THE PICTURE OF A LIMB

Ibn Sina was born in a tiny settlement called Afshanah, outside the village of Kharmaythan, and soon after his birth his family moved to the nearby city of Bukhara. While he was still a small boy his father, a tax collector, arranged for him to study with a teacher of Qu’ran and a teacher of literature, and by the time he was ten he had memorized the entire Qu’ran and absorbed much of Muslim culture. His father met a learned vegetable peddler named Mahmud the Mathematician, who taught the child Indian calculation and algebra. Before the gifted youth grew his first facial hairs he had qualified in law and delved into Euclid and geometry, and his teachers begged his father to allow him to devote his life to scholarship.

He began the study of medicine at eleven and by the time he was sixteen he was lecturing to older physicians and spending much of his time in the practice of law. All his life he would be both jurist and philosopher, but he noted that although these learned pursuits were given deference and respect by the Persian world in which he lived, nothing mattered more to an individual than his well-being and whether he would live or die. At an early age, fate made Ibn Sina the servant of a series of rulers who used his genius to guard their health, and though he wrote dozens of volumes on law and philosophy—enough to win him the affectionate sobriquet of Second Teacher (First Teacher being Mohammed)—it was as the Prince of Physicians that he gained the fame and adulation that followed him wherever he traveled.

In Ispahan, where he had gone at once from political refugee to
hakimbashi,
Chief Physician, he found a city with a large supply of physicians, and more men constantly becoming healers by means of simple declaration. Few of these would-be physicians shared the dogged scholarship or intellectual genius that had marked his own entry into medicine, and he realized that a means was needed to determine who was qualified to practice and
who was not. For more than a century, examinations had been given to potential physicians in Baghdad, and Ibn Sina convinced the medical community that in Ispahan the qualifying examination at the
madrassa
should create or reject physicians, with himself as chief medical examiner.

Ibn Sina was the foremost physician in the Eastern and Western Caliphates, yet he worked in an educational environment that did not have the prestige of the largest facilities. The academy at Toledo had its House of Science, the university in Baghdad had its school for translators, Cairo boasted a rich and solid medical tradition that went back many centuries. Each of these places had a famous and magnificent library. In contrast, in Ispahan there was the small
madrassa
and a library that depended on the charity of the larger and richer institution in Baghdad. The
maristan
was a smaller, paler version of the great Azudi hospital in Baghdad. The presence of Ibn Sina had to make up for a lack of institutional size and grandeur.

Ibn Sina admitted to the sin of pride. While his own reputation was so towering as to be untouchable, he was sensitive about the standing of the physicians he trained.

On the eighth day of the month of
Shawwa,
a caravan from Baghdad brought him a letter from Ibn Sabur Y
ā
q
ū
t, the chief medical examiner of Baghdad. Ibn Sabur was coming to Ispahan and would visit the
maristan
the first half of the month of
Zulkadah.
Ibn Sina had met Ibn Sabur before and steeled himself to withstand the condescension and constant smug comparisons of his Baghdad rival.

Despite all the costly advantages medicine enjoyed in Baghdad, he knew that the examining there was often notoriously lax. But here at the
maristan
were two medical clerks as sound as any he had seen. And at once he knew how he could send word back to the Baghdad medical community about the kind of physicians Ibn Sina made in Ispahan.

Thus, because Ibn Sabur Y
ā
q
ū
t was coming to the
maristan,
Jesse ben Benjamin and Mirdin Askari were called to the examining that would grant or deny their right to be called
hakim.

Ibn Sabur Y
ā
q
ū
t was as Ibn Sina remembered him. Success had made his eyes slightly imperious beneath his puffy lids. There was more gray in his hair than had been there when the two of them had met in Hamadh
ā
n twelve years before, and now he wore a flamboyant, costly costume of particolored stuff that proclaimed his position and prosperity but, despite its exquisite workmanship, couldn’t hide the fact that he had added greatly to his girth since his younger days. He toured the
madrassa
and the
maristan
with a smile on his lips and lofty good humor, sighing and commenting that
it must be luxury to be able to deal with problems on so small a scale.

The distinguished visitor seemed pleased to be asked to sit on the examining board that would question two candidate clerks.

The scholastic community of Ispahan didn’t have a depth of excellence but there was sufficient brilliance at the top of most disciplines to make it easy for Ibn Sina to enlist an examining board that would have been respected in Cairo or Toledo. Al-Juzjani would question on surgery. The Imam Yussef Gamali of the Friday Mosque would test on theology. Musa Ibn Abbas, a
mullah
who was on the staff of the Imam Mirza-aboul Qandrasseh, Vizier of Persia, would test on law and jurisprudence. Ibn Sina himself would deal with philosophy; and in medicine, the visitor from Baghdad was subtly encouraged to present his most difficult questions.

Ibn Sina was unbothered by the fact that both his candidates were Jews. Some Hebrews, of course, were dullards who made poor doctors, but in his experience the most intelligent of the
Dhimmis
who came to medicine had already traveled half the distance, for inquiry and intellectual argument and a delving after truths and proofs were part of their religion, ingrained in them in their study houses long before they became medical clerks.

Mirdin Askari was summoned first. The homely, long-jawed face was alert but calm, and when Musa Ibn Abbas asked a question regarding the laws of property he answered without flamboyance but fully and completely, citing examples and precedents in
Fiqh
and
Shar
ī
’a.
The other examiners sat a little straighter when Yussef Gamali’s questions merged law with theology, but any thought that the candidate was at a disadvantage because he was not a True Believer was dispelled by Mirdin’s profundity. He used examples from Mohammed’s life and recorded thoughts as his arguments, acknowledging the legal and social differences between Islam and his own religion where they were relevant, and where they were not, weaving Torah into his answers as a shoring up of Qu’ran, or Qu’ran as a buttressing of Torah. He used his mind like a sword, Ibn Sina thought, feinting, parrying, now and then sinking a point home as if it were made of cold steel. So many-layered was his scholarship that, although each man who listened shared erudition with him to a greater or lesser degree, nonetheless it numbed them and filled them with an admiration for the revealed mind.

When his chance came, Ibn Sabur loosed question after question like arrows. The answers always were given without hesitation, but they were never the opinion of Mirdin Askari. Instead, they were citations from Ibn Sina or Rhazes or Galen or Hippocrates, and once Mirdin quoted from
On Low Fevers
by Ibn Sabur Y
ā
qût, and the physician from Baghdad kept his
face impassive as he sat and listened to his own words come back at him.

The examining went on far longer than most, until finally the candidate fell silent and looked at them and no more questions came from the seated men.

Ibn Sina dismissed Mirdin gently and sent for Jesse ben Benjamin.

He could feel a subtle change in the atmosphere as the new candidate came in, tall and broad enough to be a visual challenge to older, ascetic men, with skin leathered by the sun of West and East, wide-set brown eyes that held a wary innocence, and a fierce broken nose that made him look more like a spear-carrier than a physician. His large, square hands seemed fashioned to bend iron but Ibn Sina had seen them stroke fevered faces with great gentleness and cut into bleeding flesh with an absolutely controlled knife. His mind had long been a physician’s.

Ibn Sina purposely had brought Mirdin to testing first, to set the stage and because Jesse ben Benjamin was different from the clerks to whom these authorities were accustomed, with qualities that couldn’t be revealed in an academic examination. He had covered material prodigiously in three years but his scholarship wasn’t as deep as Mirdin’s. He had presence, even now in his nervousness.

He was staring at Musa Ibn Abbas and appeared white about the mouth, more nervous than Askari had been.

The Imam Qandrasseh’s aide had noted the stare, which was almost rude, and abruptly the
mullah
began with a political question whose dangers he didn’t bother to hide.

“Does the kingdom belong to the mosque or to the palace?”

Rob did not answer with the swift and unhesitating surety that had been so impressive in Mirdin. “It is spelled out in Qu’ran,” he said in his accented Persian. “Allah says in
Sura
Two, ‘I am setting in the earth a viceroy.’ And in
Sura
Thirty-eight, a Shah’s task is stated in these words: ‘David, behold, We have appointed thee a viceroy in the earth, therefore judge between men justly, and follow not caprice, lest it lead thee astray from the way of God.’ Therefore, the kingdom belongs to God.”

In giving the kingdom to God, the reply had avoided the choice between Qandrasseh and Al
ā
, yet it was a good and clever answer. The
mullah
did not argue.

Ibn Sabur asked the candidate to differentiate between smallpox and measles.

Rob quoted from Rhazes’ treatise entitled
Division of Diseases,
pointing out that the premonitory symptoms of smallpox are fever and pain in the back, while in measles the heat is greater and there is marked mental
distress. He cited Ibn Sina as if the physician were not there, saying that Book Four of the
Qan
ū
n
suggests that the rash of measles usually emerges all at once, while the rash of smallpox appears spot after spot.

He was steady and unwavering and didn’t try to draw into his answer his experience with the plague, as a lesser man might have done. Ibn Sina knew him to be worthy; of all the examiners, only he and al-Juzjani knew the magnitude of the effort this man had put into the past three years.

“What if you must treat a fractured knee?” al-Juzjani asked.

“If the leg is straight, one must immobilize it by binding it between two rigid splints. If it is bent,
Hakim
Jalal-ul-Din has devised a way of splinting which serves well for a knee as well as for a fractured or dislocated elbow.” There was paper and ink and a quill next to the visitor from Baghdad, and the candidate moved to these materials. “I can draw a limb so that you may see the placement of the splint,” he said.

Ibn Sina was horrified. Though the
Dhimmi
was a European, surely he must know that one who drew a picture of a human form, in whole or in part, would burn in the hottest of hell’s fires. It was sin and transgression for a strict Muslim even to glance at such a picture. Given the presence of the
mullah
and the Imam, the artist who mocked God and seduced their morality by re-creating man would go to an Islamic court and never be named a
hakim.

The seated examiners reflected a variety of emotions. Al-Juzjani’s face indicated vast regret, a small smile trembled on Ibn Sabur’s mouth, the Imam was perturbed, the
mullah
already angry.

The quill flew between inkpot and paper. It made a quick scratching and in a moment it was too late, the drawing was done. Rob handed it to Ibn Sabur and the man from Baghdad studied it, transparently disbelieving. When he passed it to al-Juzjani, the surgeon could not prevent a grin.

It seemed to take a long time to reach Ibn Sina but when the paper arrived he saw that the limb depicted was … a limb! The bent branch of an apricot tree without doubt, for it was drawn in leaf. A knotted gnarl cleverly took the place of the injured knee joint, and the ends of the splint were shown tied well above and below the knot.

There were no questions regarding the splint.

Ibn Sina looked at Jesse, taking care to mask both his relief and his affection. He vastly enjoyed glancing at the face of the visitor from Baghdad. Settling back, he began to ask his student the most intriguing philosophical question he could formulate, secure that the
maristan
of Ispahan could afford to show off just a little more.