´¡²ÑÄ€±·±õ, pen name of AmÄn-AllÄh Khan, ḴÄn-e ZamÄn (d. 14 Ḏu'lḥejja 1046/29 April 1637), an Indo-Muslim physician and author of works on medicine.
He was the son of MahÄbat Khan Ḥosayni (d. 1634), the well-known commander of the Mughal’s army, whose connections and support led AmÄn-AllÄh to a prominent career in the Mughal administration. In 1622 AmÄn-AllÄh became his father’s deputy as governor of Kabul with the title of ḴÄnzÄd Khan, and three years later succeeded him as governor of Bengal. ŠÄh-JahÄn (r. 1628-58) appointed him in 1628 governor of Malwa and gave him the title of ḴÄn-e ZamÄn, but in the same year AmÄn-AllÄh followed his father as his deputy in the Deccan, and later on the BÄlÄ á¸ Ät territory was entrusted to him. He then entered the services of Emperor AwrangzÄ“b (r. 1658-1707) in DawlatÄbÄd but died shortly after on 29th April 1637.
AmÄn-AllÄh left several works on medicine and other subjects. His Ganj-e bÄdÄvard is one of the largest Persian treatises on pharmacology composed in Mughal India, in which he has also used Sanskrit sources, such as those by SuÅ›ruta and Bhoja. He also translated into Persian, with the title Dastur al-honud, the Madanavinoda, a Sanskrit treatise on drugs and foods composed in 1375 under the patronage of king MadanapÄla. He mentions in the beginning of his Ganj-e bÄdÄvard the other medical treatises written by him, including Omm al-Ê¿elÄj, a Persian monograph on purgatives (comp. 1036/1626-27), which he dedicated to Emperor JahÄngir (q.v.). His non-medical writings include two collections of letters: the RoqÊ¿Ät-e AmÄn-AllÄh Ḥosayni on mysticism addressed to the leading Sufis of the time, and EnšÄʾ-e ḴÄnzÄd ḴÄn on political and social matters in four chapters (´Ú²¹á¹£l). He is also the author of TÄriḵ-e salÄtin-e Ê¿Älam and an Arabic and Persian lexicon, ÄŒahÄr Ê¿oná¹£or-e dÄneš, which has been described as based mostly on Farhang-e jahÄngiri, a Persian dictionary by Mir JamÄl-al-Din Ḥosayn Enju ŠirÄzi (Marshall, p. 69; á¹¢afÄ, V/1, pp. 389-90; Rieu, II, pp. 509-10).
AmÄn-AllÄh Khan was also a poet with the pen name AmÄni. He left the DivÄn-e AmÄni, a collection of panegyrics addressed to ŠÄh-JahÄn. Nur-al-Din ŠirÄzi, the other leading Indo-Muslim medical writer of the first half of 17th century, dedicated to AmÄn-AllÄh his dictionary of medical terms, called Qosá¹Äs al²¹á¹e²ú²úÄåʾ.
Bibliography:
Ê¿Abd-al-Ḥayy Ḥasani, Nozhat al-ḵawÄá¹er wa bahjat al-masÄmeÊ¿ wa'l-nawÄẓer...tarÄjem olamÄʾ al-Hend wa aÊ¿yÄnehÄ men al-qarn al-awwal ela'l-qarn al-sÄbeÊ¿, 2nd ed., 8 vols., Hyderabad, 1962-81, V, p. 86.
AmÄn AllÄh Khan, Omm al-Ê¿elÄj, Kanpur, 1873.
ŠÄhnavÄz Khan AwrangÄbÄdi, MaʾÄṯer al-omarÄʾ, tr. H. Beveridge as The MaÄthirul-umarÄ, revised and annotated Raini Prashad, 2 vols. in 3, New Delhi, 1979, I, pp. 212-19.
D. N. Marshall, Mughals in India: A Bibliographical Survey, Bombay etc., 1967, 5 I. p. 69.
Charles Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Musium, 3 vols., London, 1966.
Ḏabiḥ-AllÄh á¹¢afÄ,TÄriḵ-e adabiyÄt dar IrÄn, 5 vols. in 8, Tehran, 1959-92.
(Fabrizio Speziale)
Originally Published: December 10, 2010
Last Updated: August 2, 2011
Cite this entry:Fabrizio Speziale, “´¡²ÑÄ€±·±õ,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2012, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/amani-physician (accessed on 16 October 2012).
