Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

Gandhi Shapur was one of the largest medical centers in the late Sassanid and early Islamic schools in Baghdad. The doctors, who often had a field teaching at Gandhi Shapur, moved to the city during their transfer to Baghdad, and accordingly they gave a kind of scientific center to the capital of the new Islamic government. Among the doctors of this scientific center was the Bakhtiyad dynasty, which in this study we explored the role of this family in medicine. The study shows that Jundishapur University hosted a large number of Greek, Indian, Nestorian scholars and scholars working at the center, and the head of the Faculty of Medicine was led by the Bakhtiyad family. The desire of the Abbasid caliphs to boost the city of Baghdad such as the Sassanid Centers of Science and Technology, and their success in that area, were the factors that invited the scientists from Jindi Shapur and the caliphate support from them. The transfer of scientific activities of Ajar George Bin Bakhtih from Jindi Shapur to Baghdad was an introduction to the decline of the scientific star of this center and the influence of Iranian culture on Islam. Several factors such as the scientific need, attention and support of caliphs from scientists and conversion of the city of Baghdad to the center of the sciences were the causes for invitation of the Bakhtiyad family to Baghdad. In this study, we assess the activities of the Bakhtiyad family in  the government of Abbasid caliphs.
 

The physicians of the Bukhtishu dynasty first entered the Abbasi court with the aim of practicing medicine; but soon after, thanks to their medical knowledge and skills, they gained a lot of power and wealth and became involved in power relations at court. Although they were able to gain a high position in the Abbasid court; but their position was constantly unstable, and sometimes they were at the peak of power and sometimes at the bottom of humiliation. Therefore, the present study, with a historical method and a descriptive-analytical approach, seeks to answer the question: what factors have been effective on the relationship between the physicians of the Bukhtishu dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate? The claim of the research is that the need of the caliphs for treatment provided the background for the entry of the doctors of Bukhtishu dynasty to the caliphate system and strengthened their presence in the court. Factors such as the success of these physicians in medicine, the power of the caliphs in supporting them; other threats from courtiers also fluctuated the status of these physicians. The findings of the study indicate that physicians with the benefit of medical knowledge had such an effect on the caliphs that they were considered as one of the main actors in politics, so they play an important role in the removal and installation of caliphs, poisoning and killing of them. They could pave the way for their conditioned person to come to power by abandoning their treatment; they were also degraded, imprisoned, and sometimes exiled or even killed.