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Ali ibn Isa ar-Rumi

Type Figure Region West Asia Time c. 940–1038 Also known as Ali the oculist

Ali ibn Isa ar-Rumi was a renowned Islamic oculist of the 10th–11th centuries, known as al-Kahhal, said to have Byzantine or Anatolian origins and lo…

Timeline

  1. c. 970–1020Baghdad · IraqAli ibn Isa specialized in ophthalmology in Baghdad, accumulating clinical and surgical experience and beginning to compile ophthalmic knowledge, laying the groundwork for the Memoir for Oculists.
  2. 1021–1038Baghdad · IraqIn the 1020s his Memoir for Oculists circulated widely in the Islamic medical world, describing over 130 eye diseases and treatments such as couching, and became a standard ophthalmology textbook whose influence reached the medieval European medical translation tradition.

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