Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari (Persian: علی ابن سهل ربان طبری آملی) (c. 838 – c. 870 CE) also given as 810-855[1] and 783-858[2] was a Persian Muslim hakim, Islamic scholar, physician and psychologist [1] of Zoroastrian[3][4] descent, who produced one of the first encyclopedia of medicine. He was a pioneer of pediatrics and the field of child development.[5] His stature, however, was eclipsed by his more famous pupil, Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi ("Rhazes").
Ali came from a well-known Syriac family of Merv but moved to Tabaristan (hence al-Tabari – "from Tabaristan") but became an Islamic convert under the Abbassid caliph Al-Mu'tasim (833–842), who took him into the service of the court, in which he continued under Al-Mutawakkil (847–861). His father Sahl ibn Bishr was a state official, highly educated and well respected member of the Syriac community.[2] Ali ibn Sahl was fluent in Syriac and Greek, the two sources for the medical tradition of antiquity, and versed in fine calligraphy.
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Firdous al-Hikmah was one of the oldest encyclopedia of medicine, Based on Syriac translations of Greek sources (Hippocrates, Galen Dioscorides, and others).[1] It is divided into 7 sections and 30 parts, with 360 chapters in total. The appendix contains a review of Indian medicine based on Persian and Arabic translations of Indian medical works.[1] It deals with pediatrics and child development in depth, as well as psychology and psychotherapy. Unlike earlier physicians, however, al-Tabari emphasized strong ties between psychology and medicine, and the need of psychotherapy and counseling in the therapeutic treatment of patients. He wrote that patients frequently feel sick due to delusions or imagination, and that these can be treated through "wise counselling" by smart and witty physicians who could win the rapport and confidence of their patients, leading to a positive therapeutic outcome.[5]
On the Quran he said: "When I was a Christian I used to say, as did an uncle of mine who was one of the learned and eloquent men, that eloquence is not one of the signs of prophethood because it is common to all the peoples; but when I discarded (blind) imitation and (old) customs and gave up adhering to (mere) habit and training and reflected upon the meanings of the Qur'an I came to know that what the followers of the Qur'an claimed for it was true. The fact is that I have not found any book, be it by an Arab or a Persian, an Indian or a Greek, right from the beginning of the world up to now, which contains at the same time praises of God, belief in the prophets and apostles, exhortations to good, everlasting deeds, command to do good and prohibition against doing evil, inspiration to the desire of paradise and to avoidance of hell-fire as this Qur'an does. So when a person brings to us a book of such qualities, which inspires such reverence and sweetness in the hearts and which has achieved such an overlasting success and he is (at the same time) an illiterate person who did never learnt the art of writing or rhetoric, that book is without any doubt one of the signs of his Prophethood."[6][7]
For some new discoveries about Ali Rabban-al-Tabbari,watch first short video documentary on Tabbari by Kamran Ayub Yousafzai of Peshawar Pakistan.