Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s Prolegomena to Medicine: The Introduction to his Commentary on Galen’s On Sects

As Sarah Stroumsa has worked not only on introductions and prolegomena to philosophy and theology but also on the role and position of medicine within the sciences, I thought that contributing to her Festschrift volume with Ibn al-Tayyib’s prolegomena to medicine was not a bad idea. Given Sarah’s particular interest in al-Andalus, I felt very fortunate when some marginal glosses to Ibn al-Tayyib’s text turned out to cite Ibn Hazm. So I decided not to focus on the medical prolegomena alone but also to give a detailed description of the single manuscript in which they survive with four of Ibn al-Tayyib’s commentaries on Galenic treatises. This should also provide some indication on Ibn al-Tayyib’s influence on later generations of readers.