Sharaf al-Zaman al-Marwazi explained

Sharaf al-Zamān Ṭāhir al-Marwazī or Marvazī (ar|شرف الزمان طاهر المروزي; fl. 1056/57–1124/25 CE) was a physician and author of Nature of Animals (Arabic: كتاب طبائع الحيوان البحري والبري ).

He was a native of Merv,^[1] part of the Khorasan region in modern-day Turkmenistan.

Nature of Animals

Al-Marwazī drew upon the works of Aristotle, Dioscorides, Galen, Oribasius, Timotheos of Gaza, Paul of Aegina, and the Muslim scholar Al-Jahiz. The work comprises five parts:

• On human beings
• On domestic and wild quadrupeds
• On land and marine birds
• On venomous creatures
• On marine animals

Physician

Al-Marwazi served as physician at the courts of the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah I and his successors.^[2] As a physician, he recorded observations of parasitic worms.^[3]

Bibliography

• Book: Minorsky . V. . 1942 . Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir Marvazi on China, the Turks and India . London . The Royal Asiatic Society . 234 . 1 June 2023.

Notes and References

1. Book: Minorsky, V. . Sharaf Al-Zaman Tahir Marvazi . The Royal Asiatic Society . 1942 . London . 2.
2. Book: Hopkins, J. F. P.. Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history. 2000. Markus Wiener Publishers. Princeton, N.J. 1558762418. 24.
3. Book: Egerton, Frank N.. Roots of Ecology: Antiquity to Haeckel. 2012. University of California Press. 978-0520953635. 20.