Gundeshapur

Gundeshapur (Persian گندیشاپور, Gund-ī Shāh Pūr, Gondeshapur', Jondishapoor, Jondishapur, and Jondishapour, Gundishapur, Gondêšâpur, Jund-e Shapur, Jundê-Shâpûr, etc., Pahlavi Weh-Andiôk-Šâbuhr, Syriac: Beth Lapat and Greek Bendosabora) was the intellectual center of the Sassanid empire and the home of the Academy of Gundishapur.

Founded in 271 CE by the Sassanid king Shapur I, Gondeshapur was home to the world's oldest known teaching hospital, and also comprised a library and a university. It has been identified with extensive ruins south of Shahabad, a village 14 km south-east of Dezful in the present-day province of Khuzestan, southwest Iran, not far from the Karun river.

The Manichean prophet Mani's imprisonment and death are also said to have taken place in Gondeshapur.

The Rise of Gondeshapur

Gondeshapur was one of the major cities in Khuzestan province of the Persian empire. The name Gondeshapur (Pahlavi Gund-ī Shāpūr) comes from the compound term Gund-ī Shāpur "Army of Shapur". Most scholars believe Shāpur I, son of Ardeshir (Artaxexes), to have founded the city after defeating a Roman army led by Emperor Valerian.

Shāpur II made Gondeshapur his capital. However, a few scholars believe that there may have been a city at this location under the Parthian dynasty of what is now Iran proper and Khvarvaran province what is today known as Iraq.

In 489 CE, the Nestorian theological and scientific center in Edessa was ordered closed by the Byzantine emperor Zeno, and transferred itself to become the School of Nisibis , also known as "Nisibīn, then under Persian rule with its secular faculties at Gundishapur, Khuzestan. Here, scholars, together with Pagan philosophers banished from Athens by Justinian in 529, carried out important research in Medicine, Astronomy, and Mathematics".

It was under the rule of the Sassanid monarch Khusraw I (531-579 CE), called Anushiravan "The Immortal" and known to the Greeks and Romans as Chosroes, that Gondeshapur became known for medicine and erudition. Khusraw I gave refuge to various Greek philosophers, Nestorian Assyrians fleeing religious persecution by the Byzantine empire. The Sassanids had long battled the Romans and Byzantines for control of present day Iraq and Syria and were naturally disposed to welcome the refugees.

The king commissioned the refugees to translate Greek and Syriac texts into Pahlavi. They translated various works on medicine, astronomy, astrology, philosophy, and useful crafts. The philosophers are said to have been unhappy in Persia, however, and later returned to Greece.

Anushiravan also turned towards the east, and sent the famous physician Borzouye to invite Indian and Chinese scholars to Gondeshapur. These visitors translated Indian texts on astronomy, astrology, mathematics and medicine and Chinese texts on herbal medicine and religion. Borzouye is said to have himself translated the Pañcatantra from Sanskrit into Persian as Kelile væ Demne.

Many Syriacs settled in Gundeshapur during the Fifth century. The Syriacs were most of all medical doctors from Urfa, which was during that time, home to the leading medical center.

Gondeshapur Under Muslim Rule

The Sassanid dynasty fell to Muslim Arab armies in 638 CE. The academy survived the change of rulers and persisted for several centuries as a Muslim institute of higher learning. It was later rivaled by an institute established at the Abbasid capital of Baghdad. In 832 CE, Caliph al-Ma'mūn founded the famous Baytu l-Hikma, the House of Wisdom. There the methods of Gundishapur were emulated; indeed, the House of Wisdom was staffed with graduates of the older Academy of Gondeshapur. It is believed that the House of Wisdom was disbanded under Al-Mutawakkil, Al-Ma'mūn's successor. However, by that time the intellectual center of the Abbasid Caliphate had definitively shifted to Baghdad, as henceforth there are few references in contemporary literature to universities or hospitals at Gondeshapur.

The significance of the center gradually declined. According to LeStrange's 1905 compendium of Arab geographers, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, the 10th century writer Muqaddasi described Gondeshapur as falling into ruins (LeStrange, 1905, p. 238).

Notes

Sources

• The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol 4, ISBN 0-521-20093-8
• Dols, Michael W. "The origins of the Islamic hospital: myth and reality": 1987, 61: 367-90; review by: 1987, 61: 661-62
• Elgood, Cyril. A medical history of Persia, Cambridge University Press, 1951.
• Frye, Richard Nelson. The Golden Age of Persia, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993.
• Hau, Friedrun R. "Gondeschapur: eine Medizinschule aus dem 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr.," Gesnerus, XXXVI (1979), 98-115.
• Piyrnia, Mansoureh. Salar Zanana Iran. 1995. Maryland: Mehran Iran Publishing.
• Hill, Donald. Islamic Science and Engineering. 1993. Edinburgh Univ. Press. ISBN 0-7486-0455-3

News reports

• Farmers accused of plunder at ancient site, The Guardian, 14 November, 2005.
• Farmers plowing 1700 year Jondishapur history, IranMania, 18 July 2007

See also

• Science in Persia
• List of hospitals in Iran
• Contemporary Medicine in Iran
• School of Nisibis
• Sarouyeh

Jundishapur