Zayn al-Din Gorgani

Who was Zayn al-Din Gorgani?

Zayn al-Din Sayyed Isma‘il ibn Husayn Gorgani, also spelled al-Jurjani, was a Persian 12th century royal Islamic physician from Gorgan, Iran.> In addition to medical and pharmaceutical sciences, he was also an adept in theological, philosophic and ethical sciences.

Jurjani was a pupil of Ibn Abi Sadiq and Ahmad ibn Farrokh. He arrived at the court in the Persian province of Khwarazm in the year 1110 when he was already a septuagenarian. There he became a court physician to the governor of the province, Khwarazm-Shah Qutb al-Din Muhammad I, who ruled from 1097 to 1127. It was to him that he dedicated his most comprehensive and influential work, the Persian-language compendium Zakhirah-i Khvarazm'Shahi.

Jurjani continued as court physcian to Khwarazm'Shah Qutb al-Din's son and successor, Ala al-Din Atsiz, until at some unspecified time he moved to the city of Merv, the capital of the rival Seljuq Sultan Sanjar, where he died nearly at 100 lunar years of age.

Jurjani composed a number of important medical and philosophical treatises, in both Persian and Arabic, most of them written after he moved to Khwarazm at the age of 70 lunar years.