Response to: Medical Ethics According to
Avicenna’s Stance: A Synopsis
Hamed Arezaei1,2, Majid Dadmehr1,2
1 Department of Traditional Medicine, School of Persian Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2 Department of Traditional Medicine, Institute for Studies in Medical History, Persian and Complementary Medicine, Iran Universi-
ty of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
GMJ.2023;12:e2794
www.gmj.ir
Correspondence to:
Majid Dadmehr, Assistant Professor in Persian Medi-
cine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Behesht St, Vahdat Islami St. Tehran, Iran.
Telephone Number: +982155639667
Email Address: majiddadmehr@yahoo.com
Received 2022-07-11
Revised 2023-03-21
Accepted 2023-04-05
Dear editor,
We read the article “Medical Ethics Ac-
cording to Avicenna’s Stance: A Syn-
opsis” with great interest [1]. According to
the authors, Avicenna’s recommendations
on the medical ethics are stated in the third
chapter of the Fī Bayān al-Ḥājah ila al-Ṭibb
wa al-Aṭibbā wa Waṣāyāhum written by Quṭb
al-Dīn Shīrāzī (1236-1311 AD), who was the
main commentator of the Canon of Medicine.
The authors have also mentioned that Avicen-
na has advised physicians to consider several
ethical issues, including the patient’s inter-
ests, communication skills, and adherence to
the characteristics of professional excellence
in their practice and dealing with patients [1].
A precise review of the Canon of Medicine
shows that this is a misinterpretation of Avi-
cenna’s own opinion [2]. Therefore, we sug-
gest some more details to clarify this subject
that can be useful and complementary.
A brief overview about Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī
(1236-1311 AD) and his works
Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī (also known as Allāma
Shīrāzī) was a prominent Persian polymath
who has written many books in various elds
of science, including medical science. He au-
thored his well-known textbook on medicine
al-Tuḥfa al-Saʿdīya, as a comprehensive com-
mentary on the rst volume of the Canon of
Avicenna [3, 4].
Quṭb al-Dīn was writing this book until the
last year of his life (1311 AD), and when he
passed away, some parts of the book were
not yet nished. He had reviewed other com-
mentaries on the Canon of Medicine that
were written before him and criticized them
in his work. In addition to collecting the dif-
ferent viewpoints of his predecessors, Quṭb
al-Dīn discussed carefully the subjects based
on his wide views and knowledge of dierent
branches of science. Therefore, his commen-
tary is an encyclopedia that covers various
medical and medical-related topics in addition
to explanations about Avicenna’s opinions [3,
5].
The encyclopedic nature of this book has
caused Quṭb al-Dīn to occasionally include
topics that are not merely explanations of the
terms in the Canon of Medicine. The descrip-
tion of several medical ethics issues in the
al-Tuḥfa al-Saʿdīya is considered one of these
examples.
In this article, we reviewed the original ver-
sions of the al-Tuḥfa al-Saʿdīya, which con-
tain its whole volumes. The list of them are
as follows:
- MSS 2047-2050, copied in 1318 AD, kept in
the Şehid ʿAli Paşa library, Istanbul, Turkey
[6].
- MSS 3649-3656, copied in 1336 AD, kept
in the Ayasofya library, Istanbul, Turkey [7].
- MS 3904, copied in 1490 AD, kept in the
Majlis Shura library, Tehran, Iran [8].
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Email:info@gmj.ir
Arezaei H, et al. The Place of Medical Ethics in the Canon of Medicine
2GMJ.2023;12:e2794
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The Medical Ethics in the Canon of Medicine
The Canon of Medicine consists of ve vol-
umes. Its rst volume is called al-Kullīyyāt,
which contains principles of medicine, in-
cluding general anatomy, physiology, etiol-
ogy and health, and symptomology [2, 5].
Although Ibn Sīnā (also known as Avicenna)
presented a chapter called “waṣīyyah” at the
end of the rst volume, he did not dedicate
any specic chapter to the medical ethics. The
word “waṣīyyah” can mean both moral advice
and professional teachings. According to the
content of this part in the Canon of Medicine,
Ibn Sīnā used the word in the second mean-
ing [2]. Therefore, Quṭb al-Dīn used this op-
portunity and explained his personal opinions
along with the viewpoints of his predecessors
on the ethical issues under this title as a com-
mentator.
About the Fī Bayān al-Ḥājah ila al-Ṭibb wa
al-Aṭibbā wa Waṣāyāhum
In the dierent parts of the al-Tuḥfa al-
Saʿdīya, the medical ethics issues are dis-
cussed in the form of various topics, such as
professional recommendations, talking about
death, teaching methods of medical knowl-
edge, etc. [6-8]. Contrary to the opinion of the
authors [1], Quṭb al-Dīn did not have a dis-
tinct book or treatise in the eld of medical
ethics. The bibliographic evaluation of the
manuscripts indicates that in order to provide
a separate book on the medical ethics, some
scholars interested in ethical issues who lived
after Quṭb al-Dīn tried to collect these pages
related to medical ethics. They have selected
and transcribed relevant parts of the al-Tuḥfa
al-Saʿdīya just to teach their students in the
form of a single book named Fī Bayān al-Ḥā-
jah ila al-Ṭibb wa al-Aṭibbā wa Waṣāyāhum.
Therefore, these contents were not compiled
by Quṭb al-Dīn himself in the form of a spe-
cic book on medical ethics. This can be seen
in the few remaining manuscripts of the med-
ical ethics based on the al-Tuḥfa al-Saʿdīya,
edited by al-Dhākirī and al-Mizyadī [9,10].
Reviewing and comparing the expressions
used in dierent parts of these manuscripts
with the original versions of the al-Tuḥfa al-
Saʿdīya, clearly proves that the main content
is related to the al-Tuḥfa al-Saʿdīya by Quṭb
al-Dīn [6-10].
Although Muslim scholars were concerned
with medical ethics, its separation from the
discipline of medicine as a distinct branch of
science happened later. Ibn Sīnā considered
the medical ethics to be outside the scope of
medicine, therefore, even though he authored
some contents on ethics, he did not dedicate
any specic chapter to medical ethics in the
Canon of Medicine. In the commentary of the
rst volume of the Canon, Quṭb al-Dīn devot-
ed scattered parts of the al-Tuḥfa al-Saʿdīya to
the topics of medical ethics. In order to high-
light medical ethics as a specic eld and to
make the medical community of their time pay
attention to ethical issues, the scholars who
lived after Quṭb al-Dīn created works from the
scattered writings of the predecessors’ books
to ll the void of independent books in the
eld of medical ethics.
[GMJ.2023;12:e2794]DOI:10.31661/gmj.
v12i0.2794
Conict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conict
of interest.
Keywords: Medical Ethics; History of Medi-
cine; Avicenna; Quṭb al-Din
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