ABU’L-QĀSEM NĀʾĪNĪ

 

ABU’L-QĀSEM B. JAʿFAR NĀʾĪNĪ, ḤAJJ MĪRZĀ SOLṬĀN-AL-ḤOKAMĀʾ (1245-1322/1829-30 to 1904-05), major representative (practitioner, instructor, author) of traditional medicine in late Qajar Persia.

Abu’l-Qāsem, allegedly a descendant of the Il-khan Ö lǰāytū (al-Ḏarīʿa XXIV, p. 16, no. 81) received his primary education at the Nīmāvar school in Isfahan and continued and completed his studies during a ten-year stay at Yazd. Subsequently he taught at the Ṣadr madrasa in Tehran and at the same time composed two medical treatises according to the traditional Iranian system: al-Toḥfat al-Nāṣerīya in Arabic (no bibliographical reference found) and Nāṣer al-molūk in Persian (lith. ed. Tehran, n.d.; see Mošār, Fehrest II, p. 3227). In 1280/1863-64 he was named head physician (ḥakīmbāšī) to the ministry of foreign affairs, and in 1294/1877-78 was appointed instructor of traditional medicine at the Dār al-Fonūn. His influence as a teacher must have been quite strong, since Moḥammad Qazvīnī called most of the physicians who in this and the subsequent period still adhered to traditional medicine directly or indirectly Nāʾīnī’s students. At court he gained increasing favor; he was named Solṭān-al-ḥokamāʾ in 1302/1884-85 and called upon to attend patients in the shah’s harem at times when Western-trained physicians were, for whatever reasons, dismissed from their service (see Eʿtemād-al-salṭana, Rūz-nāma, p. 412). Abu’l-Qāsem died of cholera at Kalāk, a village he owed near Karaǰ.

Bibliography:

Bāmdād, Reǰāl I, pp. 57-58, which includes a lengthy quote from Moḥammad Qazvīnī. Moḥammad Ḥasan Khan Eʿtemād-al-salṭana, Rūz-nāma-ye ḵāṭerāt, ed. Ī. Afšār, Tehran, 1345 Š./1966, index, s.v. Solṭān-al-ḥokamāʾ Nāʾīnī. Storey, II, p. 307, no. 563.

(L. Richter-Bernburg)

Originally Published: December 15, 1983

Last Updated: July 21, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 4, p. 365

Cite this entry:

L. Richter-Bernburg, “ABU’L-QĀSEM NĀʾĪNĪ,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/4, p. 365; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abul-qasem-b (accessed on 2 February 2014).